


Somewhere Only We Know

by strange_seas



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slice of Life, bestfriends!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 03:50:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17134409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_seas/pseuds/strange_seas
Summary: Following a divorce, Jongin's high school love suddenly moves into his city. But it's been years—and Osaka is full of surprises.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal on December 27, 2015. Minor character miscarriage.

Seoul, spring, senior year. The peach trees have burst into a symphony of pink. The grass in this jade park bends underfoot, freshly woken from winter sleep. The breeze is warm and fragrant, chamomile mild--like the breath of the boy whom Jongin has just kissed.

 

The boy is older. Jongin is seventeen, still baby-faced and completely bewildered with what his body has done on impulse.

  
The kiss was fleeting. Almost fragile. Nothing more than a brush of skin upon skin. But it stamps itself into Jongin's memory with a sting and a hiss, as though the meeting of their lips had burned him.

  
"You..." The boy's eyes are wide. His voice is soft. Jongin doesn't know what to think. "You're sweet, Jongin."

  
"I like you," Jongin tells him without delay. "So much."

  
He has fallen in love the way most people fall out of it. With stillness and an elegant sorrow; the sort of slow, creeping dread that leaves just enough room for wild hope.

  
The lines on the boy's forehead seem to melt into his skin. "Listen," he ventures, with the same tender eyes. "You're so sweet. Really. And you're important to me." His voice is kind enough to kill. "But you know I'm not...and I have a girlfriend now, Jonginnie."

  
Hope is the puff of a dandelion carried off by the wind. It vanishes.

  
"Oh," Jongin says. It's not a word. It's an exhale with a lament skating beneath it. "I didn't know."

  
"Yeah." The boy tries to smile. The air smells like flowers and this old bench and the boy's forgotten tea. It steams in a tumbler between them. "She's in your class."

  
Jongin locks his heart away, so the wind can't get to it. "Oh."

  
There is a hand resting now on his forearm. The boy's neck is long and pale, turned his way without a scarf. From the bob of his Adam's apple and the quiver of his mouth, Jongin can already tell. Game over.

  
"I'm sorry," the boy mutters. There is no consolation in his words or in the squeeze he gives Jongin's wrist. There is only the chill of early spring. "I've hurt you."

  
Gently, Jongin draws his arm away. It's silly and dramatic, and he's young and foolish--and he knows, deep down, that this will pass. But everything hurts, anyway.

  
"Mmm." The hum is noncommittal, even though his next words are designed to reassure. "I'm okay."

  
The boy's eyes light up. "Really?" He doesn't smile, but the slope of his brow signals relief. He wants to believe in the platitudes. Jongin can tell this, too.

  
So he smiles for the both of them. "Really," he answers, even as his heart shreds itself into more pieces than there are petals in the trees. "I'm happy for you, sunbae."

 

 

_Osaka, 2020_

  
Sooyoung's shampoo is ambiguously floral. Jongin catches a whiff of it when she bends to peck his cheek. Daisy, maybe, or orchid--certainly not rose. Rose would be much too heady, like an old woman's perfume. This scent reminds him of youth and innocence; things still in his possession on that fateful day, twelve years ago.

  
"God  _help_  me, it's cold." Sooyoung pulls back, pink-cheeked, shivering. "Happy birthday, handsome."

  
"Hi noona," he says, squeezing her shoulder and blinking away his thoughts. There's something sticky on the side of his face.

  
Sooyoung notices instantly. "Woops, got lipstick on you." She thumbs over the faint mark that has transferred from her kiss.

  
"Leave it," Jongin tells her, leaning back into his seat. Sooyoung's wearing a thick knit dress and boots that match the nude of her lips. Her coat is the one Jongin got her for Christmas. "I like your outfit."

  
"Thanks," Sooyoung replies, rubbing lipstick residue between her thumb and forefinger. "But don't change the subject."

  
Jongin doesn't listen. "I like how your hair smells, too. What is that?"

  
Sooyoung snorts, rolling her eyes. "Cherry blossom. It's by Shiseido, Jongin." Her smirk is calculated. "Would you like me to send you a bottle for your birthday, Twenty-Nine?"

  
Jongin smirks right back.  "Yeah, but take it out of your husband's paycheck, Thirty-Two. Don't go spending your good money on me."

  
The laughter bubbles out of his companion with the force of a bath jet. "You little brat," Sooyoung whines, crossing her legs. "How dare you mention the unmentionable."

  
With a gentler, less teasing smile, Jongin bats his eyelashes at her. She's always said that they've gotten him out of trouble countless times.

  
"Don't you puppy-dog me, Kim Jongin."

  
"I'm sorry, noona." The younger clasps his hands together and bows his head. "I repent."

  
Sooyoung's forgiveness comes with a ruffle of his hair. "Dumb puppy."

  
"Heh." Jongin crinkles his eyes at her. "Thanks for coming." He pours her a mug of hot wine from the decanter on the table. In an instant, the deep, spicy aroma of it overpowers her hair. Jongin tries not to think about the smell any more than he should. Cherry blossoms--sakura, the Japanese call them--only remind him of heartbreak.

  
"Now tell me what you want for your present," Sooyoung is saying. She pushes her hair behind her ears, revealing two diamond stud earrings. "I haven't brought you one on purpose."

  
Jongin's breath is visible when he takes a sip from his mug. This is the only restaurant in Dotonbori that serves a mulled recipe. It's hardly a hotspot--most of the other patrons are probably in their forties (fifties?). But Jongin likes it here because they play all the old bluesy stuff his father used to listen to. Just now, in the background, Billie Holiday's pipes swell over the chorus of "I'll Be Seeing You."

  
"I don't want anything," he replies, licking his chops. "This is enough." They've put a little orange zest in the wine tonight, which he likes, but a touch too much nutmeg.

  
"We thought you'd say that," a familiar voice puts in, just as a suitcase-sized box lands in Jongin's lap. "So  _I_  brought that thing you were looking at the other day."

  
It's a PlayStation 4. Glacier White.

  
Jongin's eyes bug out of his head. "Holy shit."

  
"You're welcome!" Sooyoung and her companion exclaim at once.

  
"Oh,  _man,_ " Jongin gushes, tingly and fidgety and joyously overwhelmed. He feels like it's Christmas morning, but better (this year, Chanyeol got him a Michael Jackson DVD; Sooyoung got him a power bank embossed to mimic The Hulk). "Thank you? I love you guys? So much?"

  
Sooyoung looks perfectly triumphant. "I think that just about covers it, Twenty-Nine."

  
An arm loops lazily over Jongin's shoulders. "I knew you'd like it," Chanyeol declares, so excited it's adorable. "Read the card, I wrote it."

  
The card is this splashy Mickey Mouse number that was clearly designed for a toddler. The first line reads:  _Repeat after me..._

"Hyung," Jongin recites obediently, his grin stretching as wide as the Yodo River, "You are so handsome." That calls for a cackle. Typical Chanyeol. "I love you more than Sehun, and I promise never to look cute in front of Sooyoung, lest she be led astray by my beauty...!" Jongin punches him on the shoulder. "What the hell, hyung?"

Sooyoung punches the other shoulder--"Not funny"--and Chanyeol convulses with laughter.

"Kidding," he hiccups, pleased as punch with himself. "But to be fair--" this is addressed Sooyoung in a sulky aside, "you did call him a 'cutie' the other day."

  
"Because he  _is_  a cutie," is her unfazed response. "Look at his face. He could be an actor in a drama."

  
"True," Chanyeol concedes, pouting slightly at his younger friend. Jongin frames his chin with the hinge of his thumb and forefinger, and the pout flips into a grin.

  
Sooyoung taps the side of her cheek with a plum-slicked fingernail. "Kiss, please."

  
Chanyeol gives her two, one on top of the other, and preens.

  
Jongin's smile curls up like a kitten's. "I didn't think it was possible for you to be more whipped than you already were  _before_  you got married." He hugs his PlayStation to his chest and coquettishly tilts his head. "I guess I was wrong, hyung."

  
Chanyeol has tickled him into complete submission by the time Jongin's last guest arrives.

  
"Hun!" Jongin is half-giggling, half-sobbing. "Help me!"

  
The newcomer smiles fondly. "What did you do this time?" He squeezes the back of Sooyoung's neck and gives Chanyeol a high-five when the older man holds up his palm. "Hey, hyung."

  
" _Hun_." Jongin pulls another puppy-dog. It's the most persuasion he can manage, considering Chanyeol's got him in a headlock. "You're  _my_  best friend. You're supposed to be on  _my_  side."

  
Sehun's smile twitches by a hair. In a second, two of his fingers are jammed into Chanyeol's armpit, pinching the sensitive skin there.

  
With a yelp, Chanyeol swats at his attacker, effectively freeing Jongin from his grasp. Jongin sinks his fingers into Sehun's coat and pulls the other in front of him as a shield. Sehun's the youngest in their party, but he's the tallest, too.

  
As Jongin tries to catch his breath, Sehun brushes his bangs out of his eyes.

"Happy birthday, hopeless."

  
Jongin wipes at his mouth (is that drool?) with the back of one hand. He tugs at Sehun's coat-sleeve with the other. "I knew you'd come through for me." Chanyeol pulls a face, and Jongin ignores it, gesturing at the chair to his right. "Sit, Hun."

  
"Yes, everybody sit," Sooyoung commands, taking charge. "We haven't ordered a thing, and Jongin still has to blow out his birthday candles."

  
The birthday boy frowns. "Uh, no, Jongin doesn't."

  
Sehun slides out of his coat, looking fairly amused. "Told you," he murmurs under his breath.

  
Chanyeol shoots him a glare, then boomerangs it at Jongin.

  
"But I was going to order the green tea sponge," Sooyoung explains, her enthusiasm fading. "Chan said it was your favorite..."

  
Her devoted husband kicks Jongin under the table.  _Come on,_  he mouths, lifting his brows and sticking out his neck. Sooyoung waits for Jongin's response with bated breath and hope in her eyes.

  
Jongin can't resist her, honestly. He hates the whole song and cake spectacle people are subjected to on their birthdays--so embarrassing. But in the four years he's known Sooyoung, since he and Chanyeol and Sehun got reassigned to their company's Osaka office, he can't remember ever telling her no.

  
He stifles a sigh, conjuring up the brightest of smiles. "Just kidding, noona. I'll blow out my candles."

  
Sooyoung claps her hands like a little girl. She even lets a squeal escape her. "Yay!"

  
Jongin might not love her like Chanyeol does, but he  _does_  love her, the way he loves his two sisters back in Seoul.

  
"See," Chanyeol croons at her, chest out and cheeks high. And to Sehun: "Told  _you_."

  
Sehun winks at Jongin, hands held up in surrender. Jongin winks back. Chanyeol steals a kiss from Sooyoung as she turns to call the waiter, and the way she scolds him makes the other men laugh.

  
Later, when they've gotten through the crispy karaage chicken and creamy takoyaki and oily yakisoba that Sooyoung's ordered for the whole table, Jongin blows out his birthday candles like he said he would. He lets Sooyoung personally slice him some matcha green tea cake, because he likes when she fusses over him.

  
Sehun examines the rich jade confection, showing the whites of his eyes. "I've never had this kind of cake before," he says in his quiet, curious way.

  
People always mistake Sehun for being haughty and supercilious--which he can be, with the wrong crowd--but the truth is that he's just shy. The truth  _is_ , Sehun is sweet and charming; a lamb in well-tailored wolf's clothing. So whenever he acts like this, like an innocent, Jongin finds it nothing short of endearing.

  
"You'll love it, Hun." Jongin spears a piece of his cake with a fork and holds it out. "Try it."

  
The jade sponge disappears behind two small lips. Sehun's tongue darts out to catch the smear of icing left on his Cupid's bow. Jongin reads the flutter in his eyelashes and knows, in that exact moment, that the cake is to his friend's liking.

  
"You're so pretty, Sehun," Sooyoung teases, leaning against Chanyeol's shoulder.

  
Chanyeol tucks her into his side with one long, strong arm. "Sehun's always been the prettiest. After me, of course."

  
Sooyoung is tipsy from the mulled wine--Jongin can tell, because Chanyeol doesn't get smacked for that comment. Sooyoung only laughs and snuggles against him. "Okay, Chan-ah, you're the prettiest."

  
"Don't be silly, noona." And Sehun rolls his eyes at Chanyeol. "You'll always be the prettiest."

  
"I don't know why you settled for hyung," Jongin chimes in, feeling mischievous. "You could have married that director who sent flowers to the office for you last year."

  
Sehun hums in agreement, taking the opportunity to feed him some green tea sponge.

  
Chanyeol balls up his cloth napkin and chucks it at Jongin's face. "Can I have that PlayStation back now?"

  
Jongin grabs the birthday card, eyes curving into baby crescents and white teeth flashing in defeat. "Hyung, you are so handsome. I love you more than--" he dodges the second napkin Chanyeol throws at him. "More than Sehun, hyung!"

  
"Nah," Sehun deadpans, pulling Jongin's fork from his mouth. They're used to sharing. "I think I cemented my status back in college."

  
Something--a memory?--dawns across Chanyeol's face. "Oh, that reminds me, Jongin," he says, effectively putting the joke to bed. "I have some news for you."

  
Jongin bops his fist against Sehun's arm. "What?"

  
"Remember Joonmyun-sunbae?" Chanyeol curves his thumbs and forefingers into little circles and fits them over his eyes. "Harry Potter glasses?"

  
The sound of the name was completely unexpected. It makes Jongin's heart race. He licks jade mush off his gums, schooling his expression so the panic in it goes undetected. "Uh-huh."

  
"He and Soojung got divorced." Chanyeol clicks his tongue twice, the sound of it sympathetic. "And it was so bad, apparently, that he couldn't stay in Seoul. I saw him yesterday--he just moved to Osaka."

  
Everything screeches to a complete halt. Jongin loses the ability to chew. His jaw slackens. His lips freeze. He can't swallow, because his throat has cordoned itself off from everything--food, saliva, oxygen. The fingers holding Chanyeol's card tremble. Then, in slow motion, Mickey Mouse plummets face first to the ground.

  
"Hey." That's Sehun's low voice, warm in his ear. "Jongin."

  
And then everything taken away returns in a mad rush, like a scene played on fast-forward--movements too quick and jerky, voices squeaking from the speed.

  
"Jongin?"

  
"Yes, yes," the birthday boy responds, clearing his throat and rubbing the stubbly skin between his nose and upper lip. "Wow, hyung. That's...sad."

  
"Weren't you guys super close?" Chanyeol has some of his wine, now lukewarm. The strong, sweet aroma of it wafts up regardless.

  
"Yeah." Jongin bends to retrieve his card. Blood rushes to his head. "But that was a long time ago."

  
"I guess." Chanyeol strokes the crown of Sooyoung's head. Her eyes are closed. The wine was very strong tonight. "It's still weird that he got in touch with me instead of going straight to you though."

  
"Who are you talking about?" Sehun asks, a little mellow himself. The wine must have been  _very_  strong.

  
"Upperclassman from high school. Married a TV host." Jongin's reply is borderline robotic. "Jung Soojung."

  
"Ah," Sehun says. " _That_  Soojung."

  
"Did he..." Jongin licks his lips. He sips his water. "Did he ask about me?"

  
"Sure did," Chanyeol tells him. "I mentioned that we worked together at MixTape, and he asked if he could have your number." Chanyeol taps the screen of his smartphone with a fingernail. "I gave it to him, 'kay?"

  
Jongin nods his yes. He's trying to play it cool, even as his heart inflates and deflates at an alarming speed inside his chest. His phone is on silent mode in his pocket. Surreptitiously, he reaches for it.

  
Sehun makes eye contact with him. It must be obvious that Jongin's acting weird. And--oh. Sehun's not drunk at all, Jongin realizes. His eyes are too clear. They study Jongin's face with the discretion of a person who misses nothing but thinks before he speaks.

  
Jongin musters up a quarter of a smile before he looks away. He activates his phone screen. He tries not to expect anything, but it's too late to control himself. It's all coming back to him now. Peach trees. Chamomile kiss.

  
But there's no way...is there?

  
The backlight goes on. The screen displays the photo of his dogs. And then--there it is.

  
One unread message. Unknown number.

  
The tension coils in Jongin's chest, tight as a spring. He taps the notification to access the text.

  
(And it's silly and dramatic, and Jongin is no longer young, and certainly not as foolish. He knows, deep down, that too much time has passed. But hope is as wild a creature as it was when he fell in love at seventeen. Jongin has always loved the wild.)

  
_Jonginnie,_ the text begins.  _Remember me?_

  
Jongin can't decide if the feeling in his chest is happiness or heartache.

  
_It's Kim Joonmyun ^_^_

 

 

When Jongin was growing up, he wasn't sure what he was going to be. All he knew was that he loved music-- _just_  music--and that he could never follow in his father's footsteps like most of his friends would theirs. Surgeons, after all, need a steely constitution.

  
There is not much in this world that frightens Jongin (besides natural disasters and the occasional horror movie). But every time he takes his puppies to the vet for their shots, his heart breaks a little. He tells Sehun it's because Jjanggu, Monggu, and Jjanggah look at him with such reproach, such deep-rooted  _betrayal_ , as soon as the needles pierce their skin. Sehun calls him precious, and Jongin grits his teeth and insists he's very manly. But Sehun makes it a point to accompany him to the animal clinic, anyway, every time "the kids" need to update their vaccinations. They can be manly together, Sehun says. It's what best friends-turned-flatmates do.

  
They've brought their work home with them again tonight. The puppies are asleep in Jongin's room, flopped on top of one another on Jongin's bed. The humans have cloistered themselves in the room across the hall (Sehun's), slaving away face to face with their respective headphones on.

  
Jongin is on the bed, combing painstakingly through his vast music archive. He needs a song for a top shot of a moving car, snaking through fir trees on the pale sliver of a mountain road. The director of this indie film had been very specific with his preferences: "Mysterious, soulful, with sex appeal."

  
Sehun sits across his bed, on the couch. Jongin knows he's working on the new Wong Kar Wai movie, and that collaborating with his idol for the very first time has given Sehun a case of the jitters. He'd asked Jongin earlier for a song for a kissing scene, only to press his lips together and shake his head at the first suggestion. "Not quite it," Sehun had mused in the MixTape pantry, slowly picking up his taro milk tea. "But thanks anyway."

  
Whenever new acquaintances ask Jongin what he does for a living, he always recycles the old company joke: "I make mixtapes." It's not far from the truth. MixTape is a screen music agency that churns out everything from curated song collections to original scores. They've got a department for music directors ("soundtrackers," Jongin and Sehun have nicknamed themselves), another one for composers (like Chanyeol, the wonder boy), and another simply called Band (the modest in-house orchestra that brings every composition and specially commissioned cover to life). Even though MixTape is still considered a start-up at seven years young, it's made quite a name for itself in Asian show business. And in January, all three of the offices (Seoul, Osaka, Taipei) go on full beast mode.

  
"Do you think The Temper Trap is overused?" Jongin asks, prying off his right headphone so he doesn't end up shouting over the music. He's listened to "Rest" twice, and it's given him the same prickly chest feeling both times. The drums pound like a broken heart, and the percussion swells like the returning tide, and Dougy Mandagi sings like he's filled with grief and rage and resignation all at once.  _This,_ Jongin thinks,  _is the kind of song people Google after they leave a movie theater._

  
Whatever Sehun was listening to must have ended at the same time, because he answers with his headphones still on. "Not necessarily." He pulls in a breath laced with thought and stretches his arms above his head. His shoulders crick. "Depends what song you use." He looks over at Jongin expectantly.

  
"I was thinking 'Rest,'" Jongin replies, scratching under his eye where an eyelash is tickling him. "Need it for the car scene at the end."

"After Kiko Mizuhara's character dies?" Sehun's scowly brows shoot into his hairline. Then he's pursing his lips like he's totally impressed. "That's perfect."

  
Jongin takes particular pride in impressing Sehun. "Right?" Feeling accomplished, he makes a note of the song on his scene guide. He's finished the preliminary curation for the soundtrack of this film, and all that's left to do is present it to the director for a little fine-tuning. "Still need that makeout song?"  
  
Sehun clucks his tongue. "It's the first kiss between two twelve-year-olds, Jongin. Were you listening to anything I was saying in the pantry earlier?"

  
"Oh, oh, I have one!" Jongin clicks his fingers. "Remember that cover of 'Fools Rush In' they played in  _Marie Antoinette_? Kirsten Dunst is coming back from that ball she snuck off to with Jason Schwartzman, and they're racing home in her carriage to make the palace curfew or whatever--"

  
"And the song starts playing while she's looking out the window and remembering that noble guy she flirted with." Sehun's eyes light up, and he's typing something straightaway. "It's 'Fools Rush In' by Bow Wow Wow. Damn, Jongin, you're on a roll tonight."

  
Jongin grins. "First kissish enough for you?" He pushes his headphones all the way back until they hang from his neck. "You know, Annabella Lwin was only fourteen when she started singing for the band. Fits your tween makeout sesh to a T, don't you think?"

  
Sehun rolls his eyes, but he can't hide his smile. "Now you're just showing off, Twenty-Nine."

  
Jongin cocks an eyebrow. "You're calling me that now, too?"

  
A placid Sehun makes no reply, but he's typing something else into his laptop now, which means he's already penciling in the track. Jongin knows Wong Kar Wai likes a good throwback song, so he has high hopes for Sehun's success rate with this one.

  
Lazily, he peels himself off the bed so he can squeeze in next to Sehun on the couch. "Will you order us some dinner, Hun?"

  
"Hold on." Sehun's fingers scroll purposefully over his trackpad.

  
Jongin snuggles his cheek into his friend's arm (it used to be softer, more comfortable, but the guy works out every day now). The moment they'd gotten home, Sehun had tossed on some sweats and a ratty old house shirt to be more comfortable while working. Jongin hasn't bothered to change out of the turtleneck sweater and dress pants he wore to work. But for some reason, Sehun's skin beneath the worn cotton feels warmer than his own wrapped in expensive wool.

  
The keys of Sehun's laptop clack underneath his swift fingers.

  
"Sehunnie." Jongin presses his face against the other's arm until his lips puff out. "Food."

  
"You could do it yourself, if you want?"

  
Jongin mumbles his answer into Sehun's shirt. "Your Japanese is better."

  
He can't see Sehun's face from this angle, but Jongin can tell he's smiling by the lift in his cheek. "Two seconds, Jongin."

  
"One." Jongin hooks his arms around Sehun's narrow waist. "Two."

Sehun strikes one final key: ENTER. He shuts his laptop. "All right, done."

  
Jongin whoops, hooking his chin over Sehun's shoulder like an attention-starved child and rattling off suggestions. "Can you order that pasta from Mister Pasta with the brie and the basil and the cherry tomatoes? Or, like, that fish thing from last week with the lemon butter sauce?" Jongin sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and gnaws on it excitedly. "I really liked that lemon butter sauce."

"We can get both," Sehun says amiably, trying to wrest out of Jongin's hold. "I'm starving." When Jongin clings on even tighter, Sehun flicks him on the forehead.

  
"Ouch." Jongin winces, releasing his prey. "Why you gotta be so mean?" He singsongs it to the melody of "Rude," tragically off-key.

  
"You're in a cutesy mood," Sehun observes, rubbing his palm over his sleeve. It's the same one Jongin had been crushing his face into a moment before. "Should I be honored? You usually save the aegyo for Sooyoung-noona."

  
"I do not," Jongin protests, and that gets him a throw pillow in the face. Sehun's expression doesn't even flicker. He's a deadpan pro. "Okay,  _maybe_  I do," Jongin yields, "but that's only because aegyo gets things done faster than traditional debate."

  
"You're also an incurable flirt," Sehun declares, moving out of his bedroom into the living area. "And you're lucky Chanyeol-hyung knows we like men," he calls over his shoulder. "Otherwise, he wouldn't let you within five miles of her."

  
Jongin tails after him, scowling slightly, but ever the obedient pup. "Okay, now, listen here, Hun--I  _never_  flirt with noona."

  
Sehun's standing in the kitchen now, and the richness of his laughter bounces off the gray tile. He leans against the counter of the bar that separates the kitchen from the dining area, lips screwy. Then he points at himself. " _I_  never flirt with noona, Jongin. I'm a great example of a professional unflirty person. To you, on the other hand, it comes as naturally as breathing."

  
Jongin sputters. Sehun smirks, and he deliberately rakes his fingers through his hair. He tinkers with his expression, too--the slope of his brow, the puff of his lips, the two curves of his eyes. Jongin can make out the minute adjustments to the muscles underneath Sehun's smooth complexion. When he pulls back to take in the full effect, Jongin realizes--aw, dammit--that's supposed to be an impression of  _him_.

  
"Noona," Sehun starts, in a discreet, nasal tone that sounds very familiar. "I like your outfit today."

  
Jongin clamps his lips together, but his giggle escapes through his nostrils. "Hun."

  
"I never noticed before," Sehun persists in the same saccharine voice, "but you've got almost no Cupid's bow. Almost like a doll."

  
Jongin spits out his laughter. "I only said that  _one time,_ damn you."

  
Sehun flutters his lashes, pursing his lips. "Noonas of the universe," he coos, widening his eyes so that Jongin doubles over again. Puppy-dog. "I'm Jongin, and I'm the fairest in  _all_  the land."

  
Jongin sticks out his tongue. "You forget that I'm naturally tan."

  
Sehun finally lets up, clearing his throat to get rid of all the Jongin. "How could I forget?" He picks up their wireless house phone, punching in a number by muscle memory. "You walk around the apartment naked every day."

  
"Don't say it like you don't like it," Jongin quips, unapologetic. "How else would you know where your abs stand against my abs?"

  
"Jongin." There is a soupcon of annoyance in the way Sehun says it. "It's weird."

  
"No, it's not." Jongin frowns at him. "I see you naked all the time."

  
Phone pressed to ear, Sehun sends him a sidelong glance. "That's because you insist on showering with me to 'save on water,'" he cages the phrase in air quotes, "even when I say I'm not--yes, hello?"

  
"You don't really mind," Jongin mutters under his breath. Now he's annoyed. Or is it uncomfortable?

  
He gets poked in the cheek. "Yes, this is Oh Sehun. Yes, Shinsaibashi address." Sehun's still got a Seoul boy accent, but his Japanese is pretty passable. "Could I get two margherita pastas and the lemon-butter fish fingers? Yes. Yes." He covers the mouthpiece with his hand. "Do you want extra sauce?"

  
Jongin's still moping. "Mmhmm."

  
Sehun pokes him again on the same cheek and sweetly brushes his knuckle over the spot. "Yes, with extra sauce, please."

  
Jongin turns his face to nip Sehun's knuckle. He misses.

"That's the total? Okay, no need for change." Sehun slaps at Jongin's mouth with the very tips of his fingers. "Got it. Thank you very much." He hangs up--and picks up right where their conversation dropped off. "Even when I say I'm not game, you come barging into the goddamn shower like you own the place." He grabs Jongin's face and kneads it like Play-Doh. "You like me that much, cupcake?"

Jongin's eyes blaze. "I'm your hyung by three months, Twenty-Eight." The words leave his mouth garbled as Sehun gleefully squishes his cheeks. "Okay, stop."

"'Kay." Sehun drops his hands, rubbing them over his shorts. "Wash your face. You're so oily."

  
Jongin sends him a disbelieving glare, and Sehun pecks him on the forehead before heading to the fridge. That's a habit he picked up after years of rooming with Jongin. Sehun was the shyest, stiffest kid at the dorm as a college freshman, but Jongin's touchy-feely ways eventually broke him. He's always doing things like that now. Jongin usually does them back, but he's still too busy pretending to be miffed.

  
Sehun cracks open a beer. The fizz cuts through the still air in the apartment. "Did you ever get back to that text?"

  
Jongin takes the can before Sehun's even had a sip. "What text?" The beer slides down his throat, ice cold and deliciously sharp.

"The one from your high school sunbae."

  
Jongin hasn't told Sehun much about it since his birthday dinner three nights ago. Only that the guy Chanyeol was talking about had just texted him, and that his name was Kim Joonmyun.

  
"Ah." Jongin takes another swig of Sehun's beer, then hands it back. "Nope."

  
The lip of the can is wet. "You don't like him as much as you used to?" Sehun doesn't bother wiping it off; he just slurps up the excess. "Hyung seems to think you guys were as thick as thieves."

  
"We were."

  
Jongin rubs the back of his neck. He met Sehun at K-ARTS two years after Joonmyun graduated and moved to Boston to attend Harvard. Joonmyun used to send him emails every month or so--hi-hello-how-are-you emails that Jongin sometimes answered, sometimes ignored, depending on how masochistic he was feeling. After a while, Joonmyun got busy with whatever brilliant Harvard undergrads get busy with. The emails stopped. By the he moved back to Seoul, newly-engaged to Star TV's Jung Soojung (she was in Jongin's class), it had been almost five years since sunbae and hoobae had had any communication.

  
Sehun tenderly musses Jongin's bangs. "It's not like you to be awkward with old friends. You're always the one people want to see most after they've been out of town for a while."

  
Jongin looks up from where he's been studying his bare toes. Everyone always says Sehun has one expression: blank. But Jongin's spent enough time with him to know that the look Sehun's giving him is his warmest, most understanding, and most perceptive. Sehun tugs the corner of his mouth up into a half-smile and withdraws his hand.

It comes up as word vomit. "He was my first kiss."

Sehun's mouth slackens imperceptibly. "I thought your first kiss was with Kyungsoo, just before you got together?"

  
Jongin shakes his head. "Kyungsoo was my first boyfriend." He observes the thread of confusion that knits Sehun's brows together. "Not my first kiss."

  
"You came back to the dorm all starry-eyed that day." Sehun licks his lips. "We were already sophomores, and you were swooning over a harmless little peck, so I thought..."

  
"I loved Kyungsoo," Jongin says easily. "You know I did. Even after we broke up, and I couldn't understand why." He rubs the underside of his chin, casting about for words. "Joonmyun-sunbae...I'd met him in high school, you know, years and years before. So even if I felt the way I did about Kyungsoo, sunbae was--"

  
"Your first love." Sehun rests his beer on the kitchen counter. He's wearing that blank expression everybody talks about. "You never told me about this, Jongin."

  
The latter attempts a shrug. His shoulders are a little tight.

  
Sehun drinks some more beer. The sound of his swallow is loud and sticky. "So when did he kiss you?"

  
Silence hangs between them for several seconds. "I kissed  _him_ ," Jongin admits. He almost laughs at how Sehun's eyelids shutter, then snap closed and wide open, then disappear entirely behind the whites of his eyes. That shocked him. There's something else in Sehun's expression, too, swirling incognito with the surprise, but Jongin glosses over it in favor of his confession. "I was seventeen and smitten. Sunbae was nineteen, and so...so..." Jongin drops his eyes. "I dunno. Nice to me, I guess. And handsome--the clean-cut  kind my mom was always looking for in the guys my sisters brought home. And he was smart, too.  _So_  smart. Captain of the debate team. Valedictorian." Jongin trails off, clearing his throat. It makes him self-conscious, sharing mundane details he remembers about a boy he's never forgotten. "But the day I kissed him, he was already dating his future wife--ex-wife--unbeknownst to me."

  
Sehun presses his lips together. "Then what happened?"

  
"Oh, you know." Jongin waves a hand in the air, as if to dissipate the melancholy surrounding his story. "He let me down easy. Then he tried to stay friends when he went away for college, but that made it even worse."

  
Sehun's eyes soften, but it's a restrained kind of softness. Not pity. Not fondness, either. The timbre of his voice is much the same way. "You never got over him, did you?"

  
Jongin fiddles with the high neck of his sweater and wishes he'd changed out of it. "When Chanyeol-hyung dropped his name that night, I went as stiff as a board." His left cheek puffs out at the force of his exhale. "I know it's dumb, Hun. It was so long ago, and I was just a kid back then. I had no idea what real love was supposed to be like."

  
"No one does." Sehun turns away to place his beer back in the fridge. " _I_  had no idea you were so good at keeping secrets." He says this casually, like he's speaking about a change in weather.

  
But Jongin knows when Sehun is keeping something from him. "Does it bother you that I didn't tell you?"

  
"A little."

  
Jongin blinks. He barely catches the blip of frustration that surfaces in Sehun's face; a breeze over a lake. Then the lake is still again, and Sehun looks up and smiles.

  
"Maybe I'm just being possessive," he jokes offhandedly, the tilt of his brows playing up the joke. "Never thought you'd be more obsessed with anyone than you are with me."

  
Jongin lets his smile come out crooked. "Listen, Twenty-Eight," he drawls, echoing Sehun's nonchalance, "you'll always be my only cupcake."

  
He expects Sehun to cackle in surprise at the use of his own endearment. To narrow his naturally unamused eyes into deliberately unamused slits. To coolly tell Jongin he's not funny--at all.

  
But Sehun only lets his smile dip into a smaller, more mysterious one. "Answer your text," is what he tells Jongin instead, heading back into his room to do a little more work. "We both know you want to."

 

 

Late into the night, when he's back in his own room and Sehun is fast asleep in his, Jongin finally types out his reply.

  
_Sunbae, it's been so long. Would you like to meet for lunch?_

 

 

The server holds his notepad out in front of him. "So, that'll be two bowls of red miso soup, the assorted tempura platter, and a large order of kimchi rice, extra nori flakes."

  
"That's right," Jongin replies, nodding politely.

  
The server clicks his pen. "And for your drinks?"

  
"Cold barley tea for me." Jongin turns to his side, eyes amiable. "Hun?"

  
"Asahi Super Dry, please," Sehun directs to the server. Jongin frowns. "The coldest one you have."

  
"Of course, sir." The server tucks the pad and pen into the breastpocket of his black apron. "I'll be back in a moment with your drinks." He excuses himself, leaving the two men alone in their quiet booth.

  
Sehun folds his menu. His arms are so long; he barely has to lean forward to place the menu next to the third, unclaimed table setting across his and Jongin's.

  
Joonmyun is running late.

  
Jongin permits only a few more seconds of this awkward silence before hooking a hand over Sehun's nape. "Huuun." He scratches his nails against scalp and soft hair. "Are you still annoyed?"

  
Sehun looks straight ahead. His mouth is a hyphen, terse and straight. "Yes."

  
Jongin grins. "But you came." He runs his thumb over the knobs at the back of Sehun's neck. Gym buff or not, his friend's always been on the bony side. "So I guess you can't be  _that_  mad."

  
Sehun relaxes under the touch. But he mutters, "I am," anyway, his mouth stretching into a tighter line. "Get off me, Jongin."

  
Jongin perches his chin on Sehun's shoulder in complete disregard. "I told you I'd do all the cleaning at home for a week," he replies, traces of aegyo tiptoeing into his tone. He pets Sehun's hair gingerly, like he's a testy stray whose next move Jongin can't predict. "Should I make it two?"

  
He's so close to Sehun's face, he practically  _feels_  the clench in Sehun's jaw. "You better."

  
Sehun is the more effective cleaner between the two of them, but this is Jongin's biggest bargaining chip. A week's worth of household chores managed to get his best friend to third-wheel at this sunbae-hoobae reunion. Two weeks' worth should keep Sehun from punishing him for it.

  
(Jongin knows it's weak of him--weak  _and_  childish. But meeting Joonmyun alone, after all these years, is right up there with surgery and vet visits on the list of things Jongin doesn't have the stomach for.)

  
So he puts his other hand over Sehun's chest, right where his heart is, and pats a promise into it. "Deal." Then he bites Sehun's shoulder.

  
"Ow!" Sehun jerks and tries to pull away. Jongin fists the hair at his nape to root him in place. He plants a kiss on Sehun's cheek, lips smacking with relish.

  
Sehun groans in rebellion. He wriggles indignantly in Jongin's hold--and Jongin, who is stronger, laughs at this exercise in futility.

  
Sehun stops struggling. He sighs and hangs his head, low and limp. "I hate you."

  
Jongin pats his hair back into place. He relishes this inkling of power--and it's a tiny one, but Jongin is shallow like that--before finally releasing his friend. "And I love you."

Sehun blinks in his direction so they make eye contact. Jongin's smile is instant, and the wink that follows it purely instinctual. Sehun seems to study his expression (stoic, unmoved) before blinking away. But there is a sweet little curl in the corner of his mouth. Jongin has to bend to see it, but he sees it, all right.

  
"I really do," he says frankly, trying to get Sehun to look at him again. "Thanks for letting me drag you into this, Hun."

"Yeah, yeah," is Sehun's gruff reply. "I've accepted it as my lot in life, you know. Getting dragged into shit by a fake hyung."

  
"Fake?" Jongin tries to smooth down the front of his sweater and the collar of the starched shirt underneath it at once. "Nothing fake about my three-month lead, Sehunnie." The collar flips comically in his haste.

  
Sehun swats at his hands. "You're an idiot," he opines, folding Jongin's collar back down. He does the rogue button at the throat, so Jongin's shirt doesn't go crooked again. His fingers linger over the fabric. "Is this new?"

  
"The shirt?" Jongin shakes his head. It's just a plain blue button-down; chambray, slightly frayed at the cuffs. "I wear this to work twice a week."

  
"I meant the sweater." Sehun takes his hands away, rests them on his knees. "It's new, right?"

  
"Oh." Heat pricks at Jongin's cheeks. "Right."

  
He'd bought this deep green cable knit specifically for this lunch, the day after Joonmyun had texted him back.

  
_Lunch would be great! I thought you'd forgotten about me ^_^_

  
Jongin can't count how many times he's read the message. He'd read it at the counter of the H&M in Dotonbori, where he got the sweater. He'd read it again this morning after he put the sweater on. Every time, the ten words (and that terribly fitting emoticon--so Joonmyun) leave him giddy and achy all over.  _Like the Glico Man,_  he'd thought to himself as he left H&M, spotting the immense fluorescent landmark across the Ebisu Bridge. A giant cartoon athlete runs towards onlookers, his arms thrust victoriously in the air and a smile cracking across his face.  _If the Glico Man was a real person,_  Jongin had imagined, frivolously,  _he'd feel just like I do right now._

  
"Jonginnie?"

  
The voice is soft and hesitant; a brush of velvet over an earlobe. But Jongin processes it like a knife slash. His breath hitches in a silent gasp. That nickname...

  
A throat clears. The voice is louder this time, and more certain: "Kim Jongin."

  
Jongin looks up, and Kim Joonmyun beams at him.

  
"Jonginnie." This time, the endearment sends a bolt of electricity zinging through Jongin's synapses. "It's me."

  
Joonmyun's eyes are smile-shaped. His hair is shorter than it was in high school, dyed a grown-up jet black. He's bundled up in a trench coat, and his glasses are nowhere to be seen. His face hasn't aged a day.

  
"Sunbae," Jongin murmurs in wonder. "Hi." He forgets himself completely as Joonmyun's smile deepens. The sort-of-dimples that Jongin always liked appear under the apples of his cheeks.  _He still has those..._

  
"Hi," Joonmyun replies, and he points cutely, with both forefingers, at the empty bench in their booth. "Can I sit here?"

  
That sets off an alarm in Jongin's head. He leaps to his feet, startling Sehun. Then he bows as low as his clothes will let him, flustered and wringing his hands. "I'm sorry, sunbae! I'm being so rude." He bows again, holding his arm out towards the free seat. "Please make yourself comfortable."

  
Sehun stands, too, albeit with more composure. "Hello, sunbae," he says, dipping his head politely. "I'm Oh Sehun. Jongin asked me to keep him company."

  
Joonmyun nods cheerfully. The way he's smiling pushes his cheeks up, up, up, until they infringe on his lower lashes. "Boyfriend?"

  
Jongin gapes, splaying his fingers out in front of him. "No, no," he says hurriedly. He feels caught out, as though Joonmyun has already sensed Jongin's inability to meet with him alone. "Sehun's my best friend, sunbae. We live together."

  
Sehun's arms hang at his sides. When Jongin glances at him, pleading for backup, Sehun rubs both hands over his jeans. "That's right," is all he says.

  
Joonmyun produces another smile. Even when they were younger, he'd always had so many. Different shapes and sizes and speeds of disclosure--all of which Jongin filed away like printouts from a photo booth. He watches this new one unfurl from a pursed little ring into a bright white slice.

  
"Sounds like fun!" Joonmyun reaches out for a handshake. "Nice to meet you, Sehun."

  
The younger man obliges, brisk and businesslike. "Same here." he replies, looking Joonmyun in the eye. "Jongin's told me so much about you."

 

 

Lunch lasts for two hours--which, in Japanese time, is an eternity.

  
Joonmyun heads the Google office in Osaka now. They've got a small space in Ogimachi, according to him--much smaller than the office in Seoul (where he came from) and the one in Tokyo (which he'll be visiting soon).

  
"But it's a fun place to work," Joonmyun shares. "Although probably not as fun as listening to music all day." He licks miso soup off his lips and fondly regards the younger man in front of him. "You know, Jonginnie, I always sit through the credits now to see if you've worked on a movie soundtrack."

  
Jongin rubs the back of his neck, all bashful. That was a surprise. "Didn't you just hear about my job from Chanyeol-hyung?"

  
"Nah. I already knew you worked in ~showbiz~." Joonmyun's eyes are twinkling. "I just didn't want to seem like a stalker when Chanyeol told me."

  
_That_  sounded like a compliment wrapped in a little self-deprecation. Jongin will take it. "You make it sound more glamorous than it is," he offers in return. "But who told you about my work, sunbae? I'm really curious."

  
"This is going to sound dorky," Joonmyun tells him, brows lifting in warning, "but I'm pretty active on our high school alumni Facebook page. They keep tabs on everyone there, you know."

  
Jongin does not know. In fact, he's constantly blocking notifications from that very same Facebook page, which he's always thought of as lame. Joonmyun, on the other hand, is completely adorable.

  
"That's so like you," Jongin murmurs, somewhat pleased to find that some things never change.

  
"I know, I know." Joonmyun's rolling his eyes, grinning. "Once a geek, always a geek."

  
_Harry Potter heartthrob_ is the exact phrase that flits through Jongin's mind, but he wisely keeps it to himself. "Not at all, sunbae," he replies. "You've always been cool to me."

  
"Pfft. You're just saying that to make me feel better."

  
Jongin demurs, directing his eyes to the backs of his hands. It feels comfortable, this banter. Comfortable and disconcerting at the same time.

  
Joonmyun brings his soup bowl to his mouth. Jongin looks across the table, ready with his next question--and there, right there,  _just for a moment,_ he sees the cheerfulness slip from Joonmyun's face. A chink in the armor.

  
Jongin experiences a surge of empathy, warm as water on his face. "Sunbae, I heard." Mellow eyes, mellow mouth. "About you and Soojung."

  
"Ah," Joonmyun says, in no particular tone of voice. "The divorce. Did Chanyeol tell you?"

  
"He did." Jongin blinks more than he should, ducking his chin. "I was sorry when I got the news."

  
"Don't be." Joonmyun sets down his bowl. He angles his face--casually, but strategically--so Jongin can't read it. "It was for the best."

  
Jongin only nods because he isn't sure what else to do. "What happened?"

  
Joonmyun's voice doesn't change. "Nothing dramatic." But when he raises his eyes, the sadness in them is like a soft color. "I'll tell you some other time, okay?"

  
Jongin backtracks immediately, flinching inside. "Of course."  _Idiot, idiot, idiot._  "I didn't mean to pry, sunbae."

  
Joonmyun shakes his head,  _it's fine._ His next smile is practically fluorescent, and the conversation pivots. "How long have you been in Osaka now?"

  
"Four years." Jongin rubs his chin. He's got a little stubble. "But I still can't believe it's been that long."

  
Joonmyun hums with interest. "Do you like it here?"

  
"I do." Jongin bites his lips. He has to summon up the nerve to say this next thing: "I...can take you around the city some time, if you like."

  
"It's a date," Joonmyun replies swiftly. His eyes don't look so sad anymore. Just grateful.

  
Jongin uses his own chopsticks to place the largest piece of prawn tempura on the older man's plate.

  
"What a nice hoobae you are," Joonmyun teases. "I should be the one doing that." He ceremoniously deposits a helping of kimchi rice into Jongin's empty soup bowl. "Are you sure you don't want to save any of this for Sehun?"

  
Jongin is eager to please, so he almost answers before he's heard the whole question. The chipper  _yes, sunbae_ dies in his throat.

  
Sehun had excused himself shortly after the food arrived.

  
The server had reappeared, laden with steaming bowls and painted plates. Joonmyun had gone to the restroom to wash his hands. As soon as he was out of earshot, Sehun had slipped his phone, wallet, and house keys back into his pockets.

  
"Where're you going?" Jongin had asked, curling his fingers around Sehun's wrist. "Don't leave."

  
"You don't need me," Sehun had said simply.

  
Jongin had tightened his grip. "Of course I do."

  
"You guys have been talking for twenty minutes straight without a hitch," Sehun had reasoned. "You're doing just fine, Jongin." He'd mustered up a semblance of a smile. Then he'd removed Jongin's hand and slid out of their booth.

  
Jongin had tried to slide out, too, only to have Sehun nudge him back down. "But you haven't had lunch," Jongin had protested. "Aren't you hungry?"

  
The shake of Sehun's head had been determined. "Nope."

  
"But--"

  
"You can take a week off our cleaning arrangement," Sehun'd informed him with a pointed, playful look. "I'm the one bailing, anyway."

  
Jongin had been far from amused. More...concerned. Sehun had looked strange just then--a little off--almost like he was pretending to be in a good mood. "You're mad because I forced you to come with me for nothing, right?" And this time, Jongin had bypassed Sehun's wrist in favor of his hand.

  
Sehun had let their fingers lace. Jongin had observed him seriously, awaiting a response.

  
The sound of a door creaking open and closed carried over the muted pop song in the background.

  
Quickly, Sehun bent to peck the crown of Jongin's head. "Nah," he'd replied, pulling their fingers apart. His breath had smelled faintly of beer. "I just want to get back to the puppies, that's all."

  
It was a flimsy excuse, if Jongin'd ever heard one. "Hun--"

  
"I'll see you at home," Sehun had declared with a smile. He'd put a finger to his lips, leading Jongin's gaze over his shoulder with a jerk of the chin. Joonmyun was walking back to their booth, reading something off his phone.

  
Sehun had taken his leave without further delay. He and Joonmyun had exchanged a few pleasantries-- _great meeting you, too bad you can't stay, see you next time._ There was another smile sent Jongin's way; this one even more reassuring than the last. Then Sehun had exited the restaurant.

  
Jongin had texted him right away, under the table, just to make sure they were okay.

  
_Have fun!_ Sehun had texted back.  _You can tell me all about it later._

  
That had put Jongin at ease.

  
"Don't worry about it, sunbae," he tells Joonmyun, back in the present. He reaches for the menu the server left on their table, trying to recall what Sehun had ordered the last time they were here alone.

  
"Still hungry?" Joonmyun's mouth is half-packed with rice. He covers it when he speaks.

  
"I'm good," Jongin replies, putting the menu aside for a moment to refill Joonmyun's cold tea. "I want to order some other things Sehun likes, so I can take them home to him. You know," he catches Joonmyun's gaze, "he only eats the tempura here because it's my favorite. The serving's too big for one person to finish. We've been coming here forever because it's so close to the apartment. And he thinks he's been so stealthy about it, too."

  
Joonmyun's eyes crinkle up. He looks like a character from a manhwa--the gentle, oblivious one that all the other characters have a crush on. "That's sweet."

  
Jongin tries not to get distracted. "Yeah, well..." He opens up the menu, folding in a smile. The pitcher of barley tea perspires next to him, ice crackling delicately. "That's Sehun."

 

 

They never do discuss the lunch with Joonmyun.

  
Jongin comes home that afternoon bearing stir-fried soba noodles and enough shiso-marinated tonkatsu to feed their entire building. (It's an acquired taste for non-locals, but Sehun loves the sour plum flavor.)

  
There he is on their Muji sofa--still in his lunch clothes, fast asleep. He has Jjanggah in his arms, and she wags her tail when she sees Jongin at the door. Sehun doesn't stir.

  
He never takes naps--not unless he's feeling really crappy. Says they give him headaches when he wakes up. Once, in college, a high fever had forced him back to bed in the middle of the day, but that's about it.

  
Standing in the foyer, silent as a mouse, Jongin studies his friend's sleeping form. Monggu and Jjanggu pitter-patter out of his room, alerted by the smell of food; they rush to greet him, paws slipping over the smooth floor in their excitement. Jongin bends to scratch behind their ears--but his eyes stay on Sehun, worry rising like a temperature.

  
He puts the takeout down where the puppies can't reach it. Then he slides his socked feet over to the sofa and drops to his knees. Jjanggah licks his face as he fits a palm over Sehun's forehead. He presses the other palm to his own as a gauge.

  
The movement under Sehun's lids is a delicate quivering. He blinks, bleary-eyed. "Jongin?"

  
"How bad is it?" Jongin flips his palm, pressing the back of his hand over Sehun's throat. "You don't feel too warm, but I'll need to get the thermometer to be sure. Is it still in the drawer by your bed?"

  
Sehun chuckles soundlessly. "Slow down." His lips are so dry, they barely move. "I'm not sick."

  
_Huh._  That's the sound Jongin makes in his head. It reads on his face like a traffic sign. He leans back on his haunches to ask, "Why are you sleeping then?" And under his breath: "You're freaking me out."

  
Sehun hears. "Cute," he murmurs, shutting his eyes for a second. "I'm just tired, Jongin. Long week."

  
Guilt is a sneaky emotion, sidling up to Jongin with a nod and a whisper. His bottom lip slinks back into the comfort of his mouth. "Sorry. Go back to your nap."

  
Then Sehun is looking at him again. "Well, I can't go back  _now_." His voice is so droll. "You brought me food, didn't you? I can smell the shiso from here. Good choice."

  
Jjanggah pants softly between them. She looks like she's laughing--and Jongin is so pleased with himself. He completely forgets to bring up Sehun's unforeseen exit from earlier; the very exit that had prompted him to bring this food home in the first place. Consolation prize.

  
They spend the next few hours lazing about on that sofa, getting trampled by tiny poodles. Sehun munches on his pork cutlet, trying to keep it from Monggu's jaws. Jongin flips through Japanese game shows, sipping green tea. They strike up one of those long, aimless, unmemorable conversations that only close friends can keep going for the sake of it. A little office gossip, a little reality TV talk, some viral video give-and-take.

  
Joonmyun just never comes up.


	2. Chapter 2

Half of Band called in sick with the flu today--one of those viruses that caught on like a forest fire. They were supposed to be wrapping up Chanyeol's score for the new Park Chan-Wook thriller. Chanyeol had flown to Seoul six months prior for a meeting with the director, just to get the sound right. Slow and saturnine, with a strong brass element.

Now, Chanyeol is facedown on Sooyoung's desk.

  
"Babe," he groans in monotone. "I'm finished."

  
Sooyoung smooths his bangs to one side. "Relax." She leans against her elbow. "When is this one due?"

  
"Friday," Jongin and Sehun chime in on Chanyeol's behalf.

  
They're in Sooyoung's office, where they'd promptly taken Chanyeol following his mini breakdown at the studio. There's more privacy here, because her office is one of the only ones with a door (Sooyoung is Head of Human Resources and cannot function in the creatives' open floor plan). Plus, she's got a huge beanbag that Jongin and Sehun like to tangle up in when they're feeling lazy. Like right now.

"Friday! Then you've got three whole days left," Sooyoung tells her husband. "That's a lot of time, Chan."

  
"No, it's not," Chanyeol mumbles dejectedly. "It usually takes me three days to fine-tune the full recording--and we've only done  _half_ of it so far." He taps his forehead against the glass top table. One, two, three. "I should've worked overtime last Friday and gotten the whole thing wrapped."

"We had that double date with Toma and Michiko last Friday," Sooyoung reminds him. "Remember how much fun you had at karaoke?"

"Noooo," Chanyeol wails. "I don't remember at  _all_."

Sooyoung wants to laugh--Jongin spies the quirk in her lips. But she manages to tamp down the urge like a supportive wife.

Sehun's arm shoots into the air. "I'll help you, hyung." Chanyeol's head whips in his direction like a ship to a beacon. "I turned over my soundtrack to Wong Kar Wai's camp. They're good with it," Sehun explains. "So I've got some free time before my next curation."

"Lucky bastard." Jongin blows his bangs out of his eyes. "My indie emailed back revisions to five scenes."

Sehun grimaces. "That seems excessive." He crooks a dark brow. "Did they like 'Rest,' at least?"

  
_That_  makes Jongin smile. "They did. That's pretty much the only thing they were enthusiastic about."

  
Chanyeol has miraculously pried his face off of Sooyoung's desk. "Sehunnie, can you really manage it?" He screws up his mouth, pokes it to one side. "I was hoping to have the score completely recorded in two days' time. And then we'll need to work, like, twenty hours, to review the whole thing. Make all the necessary adjustments." Nervously, Chanyeol rakes his bottom teeth over his top lip. "Maybe twenty- _four_  hours."

  
"Don't worry about it, hyung," Sehun replies. He's confident in himself--Jongin can tell from that clear-eyed gaze, and the way Sehun's shoulders stay relaxed.  "Besides, the entire sound editing crew will be staying on with us, right?"

  
Chanyeol's ensuing nod is robust. "Right. All hands on deck."

  
Sehun slaps his hands over Sooyoung's wooden floorboards. "Then we can do it," he declares with conviction. His grin is amused--maybe even patronizing--but the look in his eyes is determined.

Chanyeol actually walks over to give him a hug. Sehun thumps him soundly on the back ("We got this, hyung"). Then Chanyeol walks back over to Sooyoung so she can give  _him_  a hug.

"You big baby," she coos, and the tall man in her arms burrows deep into the side of her neck. "Let me take you out to lunch before you go back to work."

  
"M'kay."

  
"How about us?" Jongin sets his lashes to work. "Will you take me and Sehunnie out to lunch, too?"

Sooyoung scoops up her purse. "Nope," she ripostes, one arm still around her man. "You've got five scenes worth of revisions to get to, Twenty-Nine. Chop-chop."

"Aw, come on." Jongin attempts to get up from the beanbag, but it's like quicksand under his butt.

  
Sooyoung laughs at him openly as Chanyeol helps her with her coat.

  
Jongin's laughing at himself, too. "Please, noona?" Sehun slings an arm across his shoulders, and Jongin deliberately knocks their heads together--for the cute.

  
Sooyoung sticks out her tongue. "I won't let you crash our date. But I will bring back food for Sehun, who is a darling." She looks Sehun's way when she says this, and the younger man makes crescent-shaped eyes at her. "Maybe he'll share."

  
Jongin knows she's joking. Sooyoung stuffs him silly whenever their mealtimes coincide. But he plays along anyway, because banter is their thing. "Deal!"

  
He extracts another promise from her as Chanyeol tugs her along: gyudon if they're going to Matsuya, black pepper gyoza if they wind up in Osaka Ohsho. Pretty please.

  
"And you, Hun?" Chanyeol asks from the doorway. He looks (and sounds) much calmer now. "Anything in particular?"

  
"What this one said." Sehun taps the center of Jongin's forehead. "He must've read my mind, hyung."

  
Forty minutes later, they're cupping gyudon takeout bowls in the MixTape pantry. Jongin sighs in contentment.

  
"This is brain food," he tells Sehun, chewing on a strip of salty-sweet beef. "After this, it's back to the drawing board for me." Then Jongin sighs again, and this time, it's a little wearier.

  
Sehun is picking out all of Jongin's green onions and putting them aside. Jongin hates green onions. "You mean us."

  
Jongin feeds Sehun meat from his own bowl. The air between them smells of soy sauce and mirin. "Thanks. Us what?"

  
"It's back to the drawing board for us," Sehun explains through a mouthful of food. "So this is my brain food, too."

  
Jongin fixes him with a stare. "You mean..."

  
"Of course I'm going to help you." And Sehun smiles at him, with teeth, so his sharp canines show. He looks like a twelve-year-old. "You didn't think I was going to use up my favor quota on hyung and leave you hanging, did you?"

  
The sensation that floods Jongin's chest is sweet and strangely poignant--the comfort of a hot drink one hasn't had since childhood.

  
"Hey." Jongin balances his chopsticks over his bowl. "You shouldn't feel obligated to help me, okay? You've got enough on your plate as it is, especially with the volunteer work."

  
"Who said anything about feeling obligated?" Sehun's cute teeth are back under his lips. He's looking Jongin in the eye, fond and familiar. "I just don't hate doing stuff with you."

  
It takes only a beat to form the quip and forget the fleeting emotion. "Why, Sehun," Jongin ventures, coy as can be. "Are you trying to tell me you love me?"

  
Sehun huffs into his water tumbler. He tilts it all the way up to take a draught, swallowing audibly.

  
"Who knows," he manages to say, just before Jongin tackles him to the wall with a bear hug.

 

 

 

The message comes at the end of the week.

  
Jongin's indie soundtrack has been signed, sealed, and delivered with Sehun's input. A little Lorde, a little Nina Simone, and the difficult director was finally satisfied. Tonight, Sehun is slaving away on Chanyeol's score at the MixTape studio, and Jongin is home alone.

 

 

  
He's toweling off his hair, fresh from a shower, when his phone blinks.

  
_Hi Jonginnie,_ Joonmyun writes.  _Can I take you up on that city tour?_

  
A wave of pleasure swells behind Jongin's ribs. He punches in his reply immediately.  _Sure, sunbae, how's next weekend for you?_

  
(He'd say this weekend, but all the late, late work nights have given him a bad case of adult acne. Even Sehun had noticed the other day as they took their customary shared shower.)

  
_Perfect,_  Joonmyun types back.  _And thanks ^_^_

  
There's that damned emoticon. Jongin puts a hand on his face. He's going to be alone with Joonmyun again--his newly-single unrequited love, who apparently (still) enjoys spending time with him. The thought of it puts knots in his stomach and pink in his cheeks.

  
He pulls up another chat to tell Sehun.

  
_Sunbae wants me to take him around Osaka,_ Jongin types, following this with a flurry of nervous-looking stickers. One of them is a teddy bear with hearts in its eyes.

  
He ambles over to the fridge to grab a beer. The bottle opener is right where Sehun left it last night--second drawer to the left, under the chopping knives. The bottle yields, and Jongin takes two swigs in a row.

  
He checks his phone. No new messages.

  
That has him feeling a little restless, but he knows Sehun won't reply during an all-nighter. So Jongin flops into his bed, hair still damp; stuffs his phone under his pillow, right by his head; and falls asleep watching the live action of  _Ao Haru Ride_ , because Higashide Masahiro has always been his type.

  
In the morning, after nine hours of blessed rest, Jongin feels the sun on his face. He'd forgotten to draw the shades again. Oh, well. Like clockwork, he reaches for his phone. It's blinking. Yay.

  
_That's good,_  is all Sehun has written. The timestamp reads 3:40AM.

  
Jongin checks the alarm clock on his bedside table. It's ten, on a Saturday. Sehun said he would be working all through the night, but he should be back by now.

  
Jongin stretches his arms over his head until his joints crick. Then he pushes off the mattress and saunters across the hall to Sehun's bedroom. He knocks. There is no answer. When he opens the door, he sees the bed hasn't been slept in.

  
His phone is still in his hand. He presses 1. That's Sehun on speed dial.

  
The line rings and rings and rings.

  
"Hello?" Sehun finally croaks out.

  
"Hey." Jongin rubs his eyes. "Are you still at the office?"

  
"No," Sehun mumbles. "Chanyeol-hyung's. We drank. After."

  
"After you finished the score?"

  
"Mmm."  
  
"Did you get wasted?"

 

 

  
There is no response. Only a sound that's half-groan, half-snore.

  
Jongin clicks his tongue. "You should've called me to come get you, dummy."

  
"Didn't wanna wake you," Sehun explains, his voice like gravel. "You get so grumpy."

  
Jongin's chortle is laced with lethargy. "Are you coming home any time soon or should I invite myself over for breakfast?"

  
"Breakfast. Hold on." There is rustling on the other end of the line. Sehun's voice is muffled when he next speaks: "Hyung. You up? Jongin's coming." Then there's a grunt.

  
"I'll help with breakfast," Jongin says, wedging his phone between his cheek and shoulder. He's pouring himself a glass of water in their kitchen. "Hey, Hun?"

  
"Mmm."

  
"You saw my message about Joonmyun-sunbae, right?"

  
Sehun's shallow, hungover breathing crackles against the receiver. "Yeah, did you get my reply?"

  
"That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about." Jongin leans against the counter, his warm fingers curled around the ice-cold glass. "I know you find this kind of stuff lame, but could you help me dry-run this tour for sunbae?"

  
The idea had occurred to him late last night while watching Higashide Masahiro walk Honda Tsubasa through a Nagasaki neighborhood. The music for that scene, in Jongin's opinion, had been perfect.

  
Sehun clears his throat. "Dry-run?" He's not mumbling anymore. "You've lived in Osaka the same length of time I have. You don't have to dry-run it. Just take him to all the good spots."

  
Jongin knew he was going to resist. After all, Sehun'd put up a valiant fight the last time Jongin asked him to wingman with Joonmyun.

  
So he goes on full persuasive puppy mode. "Please, Sehunnie? We can make a day of it, you and me." A light bulb flashes bright in the back of his mind. "Besides, neither of us has taken the  _really_  touristy route in Osaka. We were set on being too cool from the beginning." He laughs, thinking about their four-year-younger selves. "Don't you think it'll be fun the first time around?"

  
The laugh on the other end is feeble at best. And then it's just the same strain of quiet breathing. "I don't know, Jongin. I'm pretty exhausted..."

  
" _Come on,_ " Jongin coaxes him. He drains his water and places the glass in the sink. "You said it yourself, remember? You don't hate doing stuff with me."

  
Sehun inhales and exhales; lung-deep, both times. "What touristy route?"

  
That's how Jongin knows he's in.

 

 

 

Sundays in Osaka are spent indoors, watching animé reruns, eating some sort of sweet, and keeping warm or cool, depending on the season. At least, that's the norm in the Oh Sehun-Kim Jongin household.

  
Today is a complete departure from that.  
  
"Really?" Sehun's laughing, but the sound of it is incredulous; the kind of laughter that follows a bad joke. "A  _river cruise_ , Jongin?"  
  
"Hush." Jongin is completely unrepentant. "The Naniwa Tanken Cruise comes highly recommended. The local tourism board says Osaka is the Venice of Asia, you know."  
  
"Uh, the river cruise is for  _tourists_ , though." Sehun sticks out his neck, lifting his brows. The shape of his mouth is less a smile, more a grimace of disbelief. "We live here."  
  
"Oh, don't be snobbish," Jongin shoots back, not to be fazed. "I bet you've never been on a cruise like this in your life. Brat."  
  
"I'll have you know," Sehun says, smugly pushing his hair back, "that my brother took me on the  _bateaux mouches_ while he was studying at the Sorbonne. Twice." His smile sharpens into one of mischief. "So--" up goes the middle finger, "-- _ta gueule_ , Jongin."

 

 

  
He'd forgotten that Sehun could speak a little French. The guy had visited Paris every spring break and even lived there the summer after graduation. When he'd come back to Seoul, so he and Jongin could join the job hunt together, Sehun had wasted no time teaching his friend how to curse  _à la Française._

  
(Sehun'd taught him how to curse in Japanese, too.)

  
Jongin translates quickly in his head, sticking out his tongue. " _You_  shut the fuck up." He loops an arm around Sehun's waist and drags him toward the ticket booth by all the boats. "Just humor me, will you?"

  
The ticket booth is right on the water, across the stairs leading to the Namba Hatch. Jongin and Sehun had come here to watch Zion.T last fall, and Loveholic last spring, and The Killers two springs before that. There were a few other shows in between, too--but Jongin only has the vague memory of eating octopus fritters along that wide stone staircase ("It's like the Spanish Steps in Rome," Sehun'd quipped their first year in Osaka, "except Japanese.") They'd gathered there with all the other concert-goers, watching the boats swaying to and fro, eating and drinking and popping their ears after a long, loud night.

  
"I didn't even know this was here," Sehun is saying, peering curiously at the tiny booth.

  
"Me either," Jongin tells him, taking out some cash. He hands the ticket lady enough money for two boat passes. She gives him the tickets and a pair of brochures in return, then informs him of something in speedy Nihongo.

  
"She says we can line up by the port already," Sehun explains, smiling gently at the woman. "The 11:00AM cruiser leaves in five minutes sharp."

  
"Oh, great!" Jongin bows his thanks, all teeth, and the woman beams at him. She has that unmissable mom face that makes Jongin a little homesick.

  
"Korean?" the woman asks in stilted Hangul, getting two nodding heads in response. "Very handsome," she continues in Japanese. She sticks both thumbs in the air. The three of them share a laugh.

  
Jongin decides to test out what little he knows of her native tongue. "Who's more handsome, ma'am?"

  
"Flirt," Sehun notes in  _sotto voce_ , which Jongin completely ignores.

  
The woman makes a show of scrutinizing them both, leaning back into her chair. The men laugh again. After a beat, she answers, "This one, for me--" and she points straight at Sehun, who puffs up like a soufflé. She points at Jongin, too, before he can protest: "When I was younger, it would have been you, with all that sex appeal." Her eyes turn cheeky. "You must be a heartbreaker."

  
Sehun won't let him hear the end of it. Not even when they're forty minutes into the river cruise, and they've floated under thirty-two of the forty-nine bridges in the course. The movable roof has opened and closed a dozen times, depending on the threat of spray. Sehun says it's the boat palpitating, because Jongin's ~sex appeal~ extends to inanimate objects now. Jongin elbows him in the side. The staccato of Jongin's stifled giggling has spurred the day-drinkers on the boat join in, too. The onboard guide is beginning to send them iffy looks.

  
"Even the ahjummas here know you're trouble," Sehun stage-whispers, a merciless tease. "Spare the ahjummas, Jongin. They're innocent."

  
Jongin grits his teeth, smiling apologetically at the poor guide. "Sehun,  _shut up._ "

  
They're by the Nakanoshima District now, about to turn back around. The roof is open. It's freezing cold. The guide explains that these banks on either side of them overflow with flowers come spring. An  _explosion_  of pastel, she says. But since it's only February, everything is just...gray. The tourists whip out their cameras to shoot the winter-weary foliage, anyway.

  
Sehun zips up his leather jacket. His breath is visible in the air, and his voice is perfectly modulated. No more teasing. "Are you enjoying it, Jongin?"

  
"This?" Jongin gestures to the steel-colored water, the monotone scenery. A lonely bird squawks past. "It's glorious, Hun."

  
Sehun burrows into his scarf, so only his eyes are seen. There's an I-told-you-so dancing in them. "Maybe if it were the right season..."

  
"It would be brighter," Jongin carries on, placidly, "and just as boring."

  
It is Sehun who bursts out giggling this time. Jongin would be more insulted if Sehun hadn't kicked his feet up to the rhythm of his laughter like a gleeful little kid. He really is endearing sometimes.

  
"So this was a total bust," Jongin continues, grinning at him. "You never know until you try, right?" He reaches behind his neck to pull up his hood. The temperature is bone-chilling, and the fact that they're on a boat is so sad, it's comical. "At least I know not to take sunbae on this tourist trap next weekend."

  
Sehun's ankles cross and uncross. "That's right," he agrees, with an ambiguous lilt to his voice that makes it seem like he wants to say more. Jongin turns to hear it.

  
All of a sudden, the guide hoists them both to their feet. "Thank you for volunteering to be our team captains!" she proclaims with flourish. The synthetic fabric of her tour kimono catches the light as she leads the rest of the passengers in a round of applause.

The guide has had enough of them, it seems, because in retaliation for the distraction they've posed, she's pulled Jongin and Sehun straight into an in-cruise game.

  
Sehun shoves his hands into his pockets, his small, stern mouth straighter than straight. Jongin hooks their arms, plastering himself to his friend's side. Their body language reads Nope, Totally Not Interested, to anyone else outside their tandem.

  
"Oh, no, no, no," the guide declares in singsong Japanese, peeling them apart like the two skins of an edamame. "You can't be together."

  
She recites a theatrical spiel of instructions, and Sehun--resigned to their fate--translates discreetly for Jongin. The latter makes faces at his linguist pal, trying to get his voice to crack (Sehun's voice  _always_  squawks when he's trying to suppress merriment).

  
It's all in vain, though. Sehun only rests tender, tired eyes on Jongin's face before turning back to listen to the guide.

He must still be fatigued from the hell of a week he's had. Jongin experiences the faint brush of guilt, like spider legs over his sternum. He makes a mental note to go somewhere posh and quiet to eat after they get off this boat, so Sehun doesn't have to brave the crush of the lunch crowd.

  
The guide is still blathering on about the rules of the game. Jongin slinks behind her, intent on standing next to Sehun again; rub shoulders with him, in case he feels cold.

He doesn't quite make it across. The guide catches him shuffling past and slaps an arm across his back to keep him in place. But Sehun sees and smiles, and Jongin feels a tiny bit better. Then it's game on.

Whatever Sehun meant to tell him in the middle of this thawing river--if there was anything at all--is forgotten for the time being in a rousing bout of Bring Me.

 

 

 

Lunch is the swanky kaiseki menu at the Ritz Carlton. Jongin's treat. Sehun had been puzzled when they hopped into a cab outside Namba Station instead of heading back down to the subway. But the moment Jongin gave the cabbie directions--"To the Ritzu, in Umeda, please"--his friend had regarded him in wonder.

The restaurant is furnished like an ancient emperor's dining room--lavish and stark and serene, all at once. Half the people in here are foreigners on business. They chat quietly with their companions or read off handheld tablets, sipping hot tea. The Sunday calm hangs in the air like a scent, and it almost,  _almost_ feels like they're home.

The chef brings them Kobe beef on a hot plate, medium-rare. "I love this place," Sehun murmurs.

"I remember," Jongin says, picking up a slice. "You couldn't stop talking about it after we had that company dinner here. It was right after you did the curation for that Taiwanese romcom--what was the title again?" He pops the meat into his mouth. "Can't pronounce it. Anyway, if I recall correctly, the soundtrack sold so many copies that they let us have your victory meal here."

Sehun doesn't look particularly affected, but the satisfaction in his voice is palpable. "You remember everything, don't you?"

  
Jongin's grin is a hyperbole, stretching from cheek to cheek. "I've been told it's one of my most irresistible traits." Then he wiggles his brows.

  
Sehun shifts his gaze away. "Funny you brought up Taiwan. I'll be headed there in a few days." He scratches his temple absently; a fallen hair is clinging to the skin. "Need to be in the Taipei office for my next curation."

  
Jongin reaches across the table to pluck it off. "You haven't told me about that. How long will you be gone?"

  
Sehun makes as though to smooth over the spot, then thinks better of it. His hand returns to his lap. "A month."

  
"Wait, what?" That's a  _shock_. All of Jongin's frown lines are now on full display; the deepest groove surfacing between his brows. "Hun, you haven't told me about that either."

  
"They want me to immerse myself in old school Tai-pop," Sehun expounds. "Their archive in Taipei is mostly analog, and much more comprehensive than the one here." Strangely enough, his ears and forehead are rosier than before. "Sorry, Jongin, I just found out on Friday."

  
"That you were leaving or that you were going to be gone that long?"

  
"Both."

  
He realizes it's juvenile, but Jongin feels a little abandoned, nonetheless. "Oh, man." He gnaws on the tips of his chopsticks, willing himself not to pout. "That's gonna be a lot of fun for you, huh?"

  
Sehun looks at him like he's an angel-faced infant, sucking on a pacifier. "I guess." His voice is completely nonchalant, but his smile is somewhat rueful. "Maybe next time we could go...get assigned together."

  
"Maybe." Jongin pillows his cheeks in his palms, at odds with it all. Since they moved to Osaka, they've been joined at the hip. Concerts, doctor's appointments, gym sessions--they even plan their quarterly returns to Seoul at the same time, entrusting the puppies to Chanyeol and Sooyoung, so they don't have to separate. At least, that's the way Jongin plans his vacations. "What am I going to do while you're away?"

  
"You'll survive," Sehun guarantees, and he's so offhand about it, too. But the corners of his mouth twitch, like they can't decide if they're going to turn down or buck up.

  
"I can barely order food on my own without tripping over all those hard R's and K's." Jongin's huff is a forlorn little sound. "The apartment will feel so empty without you."

  
The rosiness spreads like a stain across sharp features. "Don't be dramatic, Jongin."

  
"First of all," Jongin says, clasping his hands over his plate, "you started it by keeping this information from me for, like, twenty-four hours. Thirty-six? I don't even know. And  _second_ ," he holds up two fingers, partly to keep Sehun from speaking, "don't act like you won't miss me, Hun."

  
Sehun sits up a little straighter. "Well, I won't." A certain melting quality in his expression hardens, then disappears. It is replaced by sarcasm. "I need a break from you and your whiny butt, anyway."

  
"Psh." Jongin swats at the air. "For a month? Please. You'll be blowing up my phone within the first two hours."

It's Sehun's turn to press his cheeks between his palms. "You're delusional." When he drops his hands, his whole face is red.

  
"You're blushing," Jongin informs him with renewed enthusiasm. "And you calling me delusional is the pot calling the kettle black." He smirks, because he knows exactly what it takes to annoy his friend into submission: "Just tell me you love me, Sehunnie, and we can move on."

  
Without warning, that look of intent returns, shimmering in Sehun's gaze like a bottle on the shoreline. His lips part by a sliver. The hollow at the base of his throat goes concave, like he's taking a deep breath...or something like that.

  
"What?" Jongin asks, smile drooping.

  
The answer comes in the form of a starched table napkin, flung directly into his face. Jongin's laughter is a muffled, tinkling octave.

  
"Will you just eat?" Sehun mumbles, and he stuffs his cheeks with the remainder of the Kobe beef. He hunkers over his exquisite kaiseki platters, picking next at a slab of gindara. "You're so dumb."

 

 

 

Jongin rests his hands against the railing. "I wanted to go to Osaka Castle," he says, the winter breeze in his face and the city sprawling at his feet. "But you're not wearing the right shoes. Or any socks."

Sehun pshaws. "These shoes are fine." His foot kicks out, and Jongin dodges it, snickering. Sehun's slim, bare ankle peeks out between his Italian loafer and the hem of his jeans. "And I  _am_ wearing socks--you just can't see them."

Jongin, in contrast, is wearing good ol' Converse. He pulls up his own pant leg to reveal a long, wool sock; puppy-printed, with a burgundy background. "Your ballerina socks ain't got nothin' on these babies."

They're from Sehun. A spontaneous gift he'd picked up after a client meeting in one of the shopping streets in Namba Parks. ("From Comme des Garçons," he'd name-dropped to Jongin, using his accent to pronounce the label. "It means 'like boys,' in French.")

The way Sehun scans Jongin's ankle is the same way he would a solid soundtrack: with unconcealed approval. "You're wearing them?"

Jongin tugs his pant leg back down--brisk, so it doesn't crease. "Course. Wear 'em all the time." Then he drapes his arm over Sehun's neck and looks back out at the view. "We should have come here sooner, Hun. You can see the whole city."

On the fortieth floor of the Umeda Sky Building is the biggest tourist trap of all: the Floating Garden Observatory. It's a strange name, considering this open-air viewing deck boasts of no trees, no flowers, and no grass; only a glow-in-the-dark floor that mimics the universe of stars above. But it is  _breathtaking_  up here. Jongin will give the Umeda Sky builders that.

Sehun leans against the plexiglass barricade. "For once, I agree."

It's a sultry dusk for winter; romantic rose lashed with that unrelenting gray. The lights in the skyline are soft embers, glowing brighter as the firmament darkens.

Jongin remembers that scene in  _Life of Pi_ , where the protagonist witnesses a religious ceremony by a river. There had been thousands and thousands and  _thousands_ of candles floating in dark, still water, extravagant and fragile at once. The hypnotic song of a flute had echoed through the crowd. Magical, just like this moment.

"I'm freezing," Sehun murmurs. Jongin leans into him on cue. "But I'm glad you brought me here."

"You wanna walk around? Get the full effect?" Jongin'd read all the literature beforehand. This observatory is shaped like a donut (go figure) and doubles as a bridge between the two towers of the building. It also commands a 360-degree view of Osaka--which is what draws all the tourists with their selfie sticks and squabbling children. "We could take photos, show hyung and noona at the office tomorrow."

Sehun shakes his head. The collar of his jacket squeaks, leather against leather. "I'm fine right here." He turns pertly in Jongin's direction. "But we should definitely take a photo."

They use Jongin's phone. It's hard to zero in on the right angle, because the daylight is fading so quickly behind them. In the first few shots, they show up as silhouettes against the endless stretch of buildings.

"Hold on," Sehun tuts, and then he's tinkering with the settings on Jongin's camera until he finds the correct shooting mode. "Okay, ready."

He takes a couple with Jongin slightly behind him, chin resting on his shoulder as always. And then they switch places, and Sehun throws up two V signs behind Jongin's head. Just before Jongin presses the button one final time, Sehun tickles him with tap-dancing fingertips. The camera catches them both in mid-laugh; twilight diffusing mauve across the city in the backdrop.

That's the shot they both like best as they review the photo reel.

"Will you send these all to me?" Sehun hands the phone back. "We rarely have such good photos together."

Jongin makes a sound of acquiescence, already transferring the images to their chat thread on Line. "Not bad for a day as touristy folk, wouldn't you say?"

Sehun's mouth twists. He looks like he wants to lay down a reality check-- _that river cruise, though._  But he nods benevolently, turning insult into compliment. "Good job, Twenty-Nine."

Jongin's starting to look forward to every mention of that nickname. Sehun says it like it's an inside joke. And even though, technically, the inside joke is between Jongin and Sooyoung, he likes this one better--whatever it is.

His phone pings. There are two notifications blinking back at him. The first is a status report from Line saying all the images he'd sent to their chat have uploaded successfully. The second is a Facebook update: something new about Oh Sehun. Jongin checks that one--and then he grins like a Cheshire cat.

"That was fast, Hun." The pleasure curling in his tone is unmistakable. "You changed your profile pic to the one of us laughing?"

Sehun fusses with his jacket. "I like it," he replies, so blasé. "The lighting behind us--I like it."

Jongin knows that's not what he really means. It's so cute, because even after all the years they've known each other, Sehun refuses to be cheesy about their friendship. Not to his face.

So Jongin cuts him a break and changes the course of the conversation. "I just hope the lighting's this good next weekend." He grabs the railing with both hands, tipping his head back to seek out the first stars. "Sunbae will love it."

Softly, Sehun blows his bangs out of his eyes. "I'm sure he will."

Jongin hums contentedly, releasing his hold on the railing so he can lean over it again. The wind is getting way too nippy, and he isn't wearing gloves.

Luckily, when he sneaks his hand into Sehun's jacket pocket to press it against a warm palm, Sehun doesn't resist. He even holds Jongin's hand to keep it nice and toasty.

It's just like him.

 

 

 

Sehun leaves for Taipei on Thursday morning.

  
He gets up at five to make his eight o'clock flight. Jongin hears him puttering around in their shared bathroom, packing up his toiletries.

 

 

  
When he hears Sehun's suitcase rolling against the floorboards, Jongin trudges out of his room. The puppies slept in Sehun's bed the night before, and he's scooping up each one of them to kiss their furry little heads.

  
"Do you want me to take the train with you to KIX?" Jongin rasps, early morning voice riddled with holes. "You might fall asleep."

  
Sehun shakes his head. "I'll grab a coffee from a vendo at the station." He snags Jongin into a one-armed hug. "Go back to bed."

  
The puppies are weaving around and in between their legs. They're restless, because they can sense Sehun's impending departure.

  
"Switch on your roaming," Jongin drones into his neck. Sehun smells like after-shave and mouthwash and the detergent he'd used to launder his snuggly padded coat.

  
Sehun nods, unlatching from the embrace so he can pick up Jjanggah one last time. She whines at him reprovingly, and Sehun pecks her on the nose. "I'll be back, little one," he swears, with enough earnestness to deserve a lick.

  
It dawns on Jongin that this isn't another overnight stay at the office. No--he won't be seeing his favorite person for an entire  _month_. That's thirty days, possibly more, depending on how Sehun fares with his work in Taipei.

  
The pang in his chest strikes lightning-quick, and unexpectedly achy.

  
Jongin shuffles his feet. "Call me when you get there, Hun." He feels so unsettled.

  
Sehun casts a long, weighted look his way. It's both grave and searching, and it doesn't make Jongin feel any better.

"Okay," Sehun replies in the end. "I gotta go now."

  
He hands Jjanggah back. Jongin coos over her, chest to chest, and she licks the tip of his nose. He folds her into his arms, turning his attention back to Sehun.

  
They latch eyes. Sehun blinks at him languidly. Three, two, one. Then he reaches up and brushes Jongin's cheek with the back of his hand.

  
For no good reason, except that his body has pushed him do it, fueled completely by instinct, Jongin holds his breath.

  
Then Sehun claps him on the shoulder, and it's as if nothing happened.

  
"I'll miss you," Sehun admits, just before he leaves the apartment.

 

 

 

The average flight from KIX to TPE takes three hours and ten minutes. Jongin expects his phone to ring a little over that time--four hours, maybe, depending on the immigration queues at Taoyuan Airport.

  
But it doesn't.

 

 

  
He sends Sehun a few messages at noon, asking if he's landed, if he's eaten already, if it's cold or warm in the Taiwanese capital.

  
The replies come at dinnertime. Jongin misses them when they pop up on Line, because he's gone out drinking with Chanyeol, and the bar is noisy.

He only gets to read them later on, when he's homeward bound in an empty subway car.

  
_Landed a while ago,_ Sehun has typed.  _Signal sucks. And it's colder than Osaka!_ He's sent a sticker of a bunny bundled up in a blanket, and another of a teddy bear wearing a striped muffler.  _I'll call you when I can, Jongin._

  
Jongin is somewhat mollified--somewhat, because the unsettled feeling from this morning lingers like a bruise.  _You better,_ he punches in.  _Good night, Sehunnie~_

 

 

 

Joonmyun lives in a two-bedroom in Tezukayama, one of the most expensive districts in the city.  _Google must pay ~really~ well,_ Jongin muses, watching buildings and parks and pretty lanes zip by him from the back of a taxi. Not like it would matter if Google paid in peanuts. Joonmyun's family is wealthier than Jongin's and Chanyeol's and maybe even Sehun's combined.

  
Joonmyun had offered to meet him halfway today. "I live so far from your place," he'd fussed over the phone, sounding more like an aunt than an old school friend. And it's true: Jongin's cab ride from Shinsaibashi has taken half an hour (it would have been double that if he'd opted for the train). But he didn't want Joonmyun to get lost. Besides, secretly, Jongin thinks it's more like a date this way.  
  
The cab pulls up to the apartment complex ( _mansion_ is the misleading word they use for it in Japan). Joonmyun is waiting outside, on his third-floor balcony. Jongin sticks his head out of the cab, and the older man waves at him merrily.  
  
"Sunbae!" Jongin waves back.  
  
In no time at all, Joonmyun has joined him in the backseat of the cab.  
  
"Good morning, Jonginnie," he says, all smiley eyes and sunny disposition. "Where to?"  
  
Jongin feels small and shy and seventeen all over again, but he tries to project confidence. "I wanted to start with Osaka Castle--but have you eaten, sunbae?"  
  
"I actually haven't," Joonmyun informs him with the kind of grin that makes Jongin's tummy clench. "How about we grab brunch first?"  
  
Joonmyun's breath is toothpaste-fresh. His bangs are pushed back from his forehead with what Jongin imagines is some kind of styling product. He's wearing a deep green sweater, almost identical to the one Jongin had worn the last time they'd met. And he's just so _handsome..._  
  
"I love brunch," Jongin replies dumbly, on autopilot.  
  
Joonmyun ruffles his hair, still grinning, and gives the cab driver directions to a little place he knows. So much for this sunbae getting lost.  
  
Jongin cracks his knuckles self-consciously until Joonmyun turns back to him.  
  
"So, what've you been up to?" Joonmyun has such a kind face. "Any new projects I can look forward to?"  
  
"Oh, um..." Jongin licks the corner of his mouth. "I just wrapped a soundtrack for the Japanese indie market. And this week I started working on a Korean melo that's slated for release in the fall."  
  
Interest flickers across Joonmyun's features. "What's it about?"

 

 

  
"Well..." Jongin tries to crack his knuckles again, but they're all spent. "It's about two people who grow up thinking they're siblings, only to find out they aren't related at all--and that they're each deeply in love with the other.  _Very_  dramatic." Joonmyun laughs. That allays the nervous energy in Jongin's idle hands. "We're just in the preliminary stages, though. So it's mostly been meetings and more meetings with the director and producer. Boring stuff. No actual music yet."

  
"It still sounds fascinating to me, to be honest." Joonmyun angles his body so he's facing Jongin full-on. "What do you discuss in those meetings? The scenes and characters?"

  
Jongin nods. "That's right. The backstory--including the motivations of the people in the film and how they express emotion. And then we talk about the music in terms of the director's vision--whether the tracks should be complementary or ironic, subtle or jarring, maybe even share a specific decade as a theme. If there should be repetition, or if every transition from scene to scene should be unique." He screws up his mouth. "That's not the boring stuff, actually.  I enjoy that part a lot. The  _real_  bore is when the suits start talking about which artists 'should' be on the soundtrack because they're hot right now, or because their labels are sister companies and this would be a good opportunity to show solidarity, yada-yada. Politics."

  
Joonmyun makes a sound of understanding at the back of his throat. "Like I said, fascinating."  
  
That brings Jongin the tiniest sense of accomplishment. He plays it off, because he doesn't want Joonmyun to think (know) he's that shallow. "You're the one changing the world," he says modestly. "Google glass and Google self-driving cars and, like, Google's cure for cancer, for all I know."

 

 

  
The older man laughs again, brighter and more melodic this time. Score two for Jongin. "We're still working on that last one." Joonmyun nestles deeper into the backseat, getting comfortable. "So, when you finally get past all those meetings, how do you start selecting songs?"

"The cool thing is that they let us watch the movie before anyone else." Jongin grins inwardly; he's got Joonmyun's rapt attention. "It's pretty raw and sluggish, since it hasn't been edited yet, and obviously there's no music. But it helps us get the gist of things." This part is less impressive. "After that, sunbae, there's nothing high-tech about my job. I just listen to lots and lots of music, and make really,  _really_ long lists of options. And then I shorten those lists and cross-reference what I'm left with until I have twelve to sixteen tracks that match the brief."

  
Joonmyun's small mouth is making an even smaller  _o_  shape. "That sounds pretty complicated."  
  
"It can be."  _Cute_ , Jongin thinks to himself.  _So cute._  "And that's just for the preliminary curation. If the director is a stickler with his own ideas, I do this two, three times."  
  
The  _o_  shape emits a low whistle. "Tough." A lip disappears into that small mouth. "Have you thought of any songs you might want to put in this new movie of yours? Or is it too early to tell?"  
  
Jongin doesn't usually reveal these things before his final curation has been approved.  _Especially_ not in piecemeal fashion. He hasn't even started listing down songs yet.  
  
But he does have ideas.  
  
"There's this scene in the movie," he tells Joonmyun, "where the man and the woman are sitting on the swing set outside their childhood home. They're well into their thirties now, and they've been in love with each other for years. The man has known for months that they aren't related to each other--they were both adopted. Typical melo, you know."  
  
Joonmyun's smile amplifies by a hundred watts.

 

 

  
"He doesn't want to tell her--about the adoption, his feelings, any of it--because he thinks it'll freak her out." Jongin shrugs. "Scare her, in some way. Or scar her."

  
"So he's the quintessential noble idiot," Joonmyun puts in helpfully.

  
"Right." Jongin flips his bangs out of his eyes. "But then the woman does this thing--she did it once before when they were teenagers on that same swing set, confused about their attraction to each other." Jongin mimics the action with one hand: "She puts an earbud in his ear, and one in hers, and she plays a song that's almost...I dunno, confessional?"

  
"Ah. So she  _does_  know."

  
"That's left up to the audience to decide," Jongin says. "But I think I know what that song should be, if the director lets me have my way. " He scratches behind his ear. He feels self-conscious again, for goodness' sake. "Do you listen to, um, Coldplay?"

Joonmyun hums. There is a pause between that sound and this sentence: "I used to, when I was younger."

  
_Good, good, good._  "I was thinking of using 'Sparks,'" Jongin goes on. "Because of the lyrics, mainly. And also because the director kind of wanted it to be a throwback to their coming-of-age years in the early 2000s, so it's from the perfect time period." Jongin peers at him tentatively. "Do you know that song?"

  
( _My heart is yours,_ Chris Martin sings, in that high, lamenting pitch of his.  _It's you that I hold on to. That's what I do._ )

  
"Sure," Joonmyun tells him, his expression brimming with unspoken things. "That was the song Soojung and I danced to at our wedding."

  
Jongin's stomach lurches  _hard_ , as though their cab driver has screeched to an abrupt stop. But their ride is cruising smoothly over the paved streets of Osaka. It is Joonmyun's countenance, at this moment, that is rougher than the road.

  
"Sunbae," Jongin forces out. "I'm sorry." He bites the inside of his cheek and clenches the hand that Joonmyun can't see into a fist. "I didn't know."

  
"Of course you didn't." Joonmyun manages to veil the misery on his face, placing a hand on Jongin's arm. "You didn't do anything wrong. It's me." When he exhales, it sounds like the breath has been siphoned from the soles of his feet. Perhaps even the ground beneath them. "I just really miss her, Jongin."

  
The confession is simple and unadorned. Even a preschooler could understand it without needing further explanation.

  
But it takes Jongin a moment to grasp it--the illusion, the  _delusion_ , he's subjected himself to. The words topple into his ears, syllable by syllable, pinging against his eardrums like taut, plucked strings. He doesn't realize his breath has caught in his throat until he exhales, and it all comes rushing out, and his chest twinges like a sore muscle.  
  
Joonmyun's jaw is as sharp as cut stone, and his neck is strong and thick. He's a grown man now. But the bob of his Adam's apple makes him look like a lost boy. "I know this is a really personal question," he mumbles. "But have you ever been in love?"

 

 

  
_A long time ago,_ Jongin answers in his head, the space between his ribs squeezing painfully.  _With you._

He feels so tired all of a sudden; weather-beaten, like the old shearling jacket Sehun uses in the winter to protect himself from the wind and snow. Jongin wishes he could slip into that jacket right now, pull it tight around him, to protect the rest of his body from this jagged, broken heart.

"Oh, sunbae." There is a python in Jongin's body, coiling and constricting around his insides. "You still love her."

"I can't help it," Joonmyun tells him. And even though the late morning light behind Joonmyun's head gets into Jongin's eyes, and Jongin has to squint because he left his sunglasses back at the apartment, he can still make out the sorrow on his first love's face. Joonmyun's heart is broken, too.

"She was the one who served me the papers," this handsome, ageless man admits. The taxi feels much too cramped, and much too cold. "I never wanted to get divorced."

That's how Jongin knows he's out.

 

 

 

Brunch spirals into lunch, which spirals into coffee. The tour of Osaka is postponed. Indefinitely.

Over crumby plates and half-empty glasses, they speak of Jung Soojung. The sweet girl in Jongin's class whom Joonmyun had fallen for at first sight. The beautiful. The brilliant. The passionate. The perfect.

  
And then they order more things--palate cleansers, nerve soothers--and Joonmyun talks about the grown-up Jung Soojung. The adoring wife with an amazing TV job, who had, without Joonmyun asking, put her career on hold to start a family. That was the twenty-four-year-old version of her. The determined. The unflappable. The endlessly patient.

  
The coffee has gone cold when Joonmyun brings up the first miscarriage.

  
"We tried again after that," he says stoically, swirling a teaspoon in his cappuccino. "But it just kept happening, over and over and over. And Soojung..." The teaspoon is abandoned on its saucer. "It brought her so low. Turned her bitter. Eventually, it hurt her to look at me--like I was a reminder of everything that was just within her grasp, but not quite."

  
Jongin's heart bleeds for this man. He keeps his fingers resting over his mouth, so he can school his emotions. "That must have been so hard on you, sunbae."

  
Joonmyun shrugs, scratching at the shoulder of his sweater. "Imagine what she was going through."

  
Six months ago, as they were putting away their dry cleaning in their Apgujeong penthouse, Soojung had quietly asked Joonmyun for a divorce. They'd just celebrated six years of marriage (minus the celebration).

  
"She told me she loved me." Joonmyun's throat works. "But she hated the person she'd turned into. The baby thing had put such a strain on our marriage--we'd been fighting over everything and nothing, you see--and she said the old her would have never treated me this way."

  
Jongin can only shake his head, because he doesn't know what else to say.

  
"She said she wanted to start over. I told her we could do that together." Joonmyun's voice is subdued, and it's beginning to waver. "But she wanted to go back,  _way_  back, way before she met me. Back to  _that_  person, with all  _those_  hopes and dreams." There is a telltale glisten in the whites of his eyes. "She said that's why she needed me to let her go. So she could have a real fresh start."

  
Jongin reaches across the table to cover Joonmyun's hand with his own. This is a heavy revelation, and it's difficult to hear. Jongin knows this is selfish; knows that Joonmyun's pain is much greater than anything he's ever known. But in spite of that, he wishes Sehun were here to pet his hair and hug his shoulders and hold his hand. Cheer him up with one of those rude, signature Sehun jokes:  _Suck it up, Twenty-Nine. We gotta be manly._

  
"She cried when I said I would do it." Joonmyun's gaze is slick, like gasoline. "I said I would do it for her, and she called me a good man."

He turns his face away after that. His hand slips out slowly, apologetically, from underneath Jongin's palm. Once, maybe twice, Joonmyun passes the same hand over his eyes, jaw bolted into a clench. He stares out the window by their table for a long time.

  
Jongin watches him silently. He orders Joonmyun another cup of coffee, piping hot, so the man can have something to occupy himself with.

  
Their conversation from the cab earlier--the very one that had snuffed out Jongin's small hopes for big love--seems like a distant memory.

 

 

 

Sehun hasn't called in six days. And yes, yes, Jongin knows how busy he is. Combing through an archive in a foreign language is no joke, even with all the help Sehun's getting at the Taipei office. But the absence of his friend makes Jongin so lonely--and Sehun's silence makes it even worse.

After days of waffling and wondering  _will I be bothering him, will he call me tomorrow, will he be able to get through on his sucky signal,_  Jongin decides to ring Sehun himself.

He'd been ready to ramble on all night. About Chanyeol tripping face first into Sooyoung's beanbag and bursting its seams from the force of his six-footer frame. About the barista at the cafe by the office who'd jotted her number down on the sleeve of Jongin's Earl Grey, only to balk at Jongin's, "Sorry, miss, I like men." About the way he'd found their kids sleeping in an adorable, heart-shaped pile after breakfast the other day. (Jongin posted it on Instagram, tagging Sehun in the photo. But the eighty-three likes it's garnered since then don't include one from @oohsehun.)

About Joonmyun.

How it had hurt at first when Jongin had returned from their botched outing, and sat down on the couch with only the puppies for comfort, and longed for Sehun to come home to him.

How, against his own expectations, that first day of heartbreak had also been the last. How swiftly Jongin had recovered from it--the indirect, unwitting dismissal of his one-sided love.

_I guess I'm older now,_  he'd thought to himself when he realized he felt nothing. _Twelve years older, and made of stronger stuff._

He'd had so much to share with his best friend across the ocean--but Sehun'd ended the call almost as soon as he'd picked it up.

"Sorry, Jongin," he'd said in a modulated tone, his hand cupped over the receiver. "I'm at a dinner meeting right now and can't talk long." The words had been laced with regret, but also urgency. "Everything okay?"

"Oh," had been Jongin's initial reaction. This had been followed by a wave of disappointment, unpleasantly dense and prickly around the edges. "Oh, okay. Yeah, everything's fine, don't worry. I'm sorry I caught you at a bad time."

"You sure?" There'd been a gunfire burst of Cantonese in the background. Sehun had brought the receiver even closer to his lips. His quiet voice in Jongin's ear had made it feel, for a second, like they were in the same room. "How're the puppies?"

Jongin's smile had been positively parental. "Running around in circles, wagging up a storm. They're great, Hun."

"How 'bout you?" Sehun had asked a little louder. The people he'd been meeting with had just erupted into cacophonous laughter. "Everything great?"

"Yup." Jongin had pushed a hand through his hair. Twice. "I just miss having you around, that's all."

Sehun hadn't reciprocated the sentiment. He'd only chuckled into the phone. "Three weeks left, Jongin."

And maybe Jongin had just been imagining things, but the inflection in Sehun's voice seemed to echo, just a little bit, with yearning.

  
"Less than that." Jongin hadn't wanted to seem needy, but he'd known it was too late for take-backs. "Nineteen days."

  
"You're actually...counting down?"

"I don't care if you make fun of me," Jongin had mumbled. "Call me later."

 

 

 

Sehun rings at one in the morning. Midnight in Taipei. He's a little hoarse. Jongin kind of likes the way his voice scrapes through the airwaves; rough palm sliding over buffed wood.

  
They talk until half past three, about everything and more. It's easy and comforting and so, so fun--just the way it was when they'd first sparked up a friendship in college. Jongin feels this tiny little knot in the pit of his belly, twisting and tightening with every laugh that Sehun pulls out of him. He knows Sehun won't be in the apartment when he gets up later for work, and the knot is reminding him not to get too attached to the idea.  
  
When Jongin finally mentions Joonmyun and Soojung and the story behind their divorce, Sehun's compassion is surprisingly vocal.  
  
"That's  _awful_ ," he whispers, and Jongin can see the exact expression on his face. Clouded eyes, pressed lips, brows meeting in the middle. "I feel sorry for them both."  
  
"Me, too," Jongin whispers back.  
  
Sehun lets out a stream of breath. "Shit." His voice is like sandpaper. "So. Um."  
  
"What?"

 

 

  
"Are you all right, Jongin?" Sehun asks, quick enough to sound nervous. His tone is colored by what sounds--bizarrely--like hope.

Maybe even courage.

  
But both seem silly in context.

"Are  _you_ all right?" Jongin turns to his side in his soft, warm bed. "You sound weird, Hun."

  
Sehun keeps silent. Alone in his bedroom, Jongin cranes forward to catch whatever his friend is going to say, like Sehun is right in front of him.

 

 

  
"I'm just worried about you," Sehun finally utters, a little strained. "Because I know how much you care about your sunbae, and hearing about his love life--his unfinished business--that must have been a blow, Jongin."

  
He is facing the wall in almost complete darkness, with his covers pulled up to his chest. His phone is pressed against his ear, heating up from battery loss. The puppies are all asleep on Sehun's side of the bed (in Sehun's room, the empty space belongs to Jongin, too). It's just another Friday night in their Osaka apartment. Except tonight, with Sehun's caring words lingering in his ears, Jongin feels every drop of blood that isn't preoccupied with keeping him alive rush, rush,  _rush_  straight to his face.

  
Sehun clears his throat. "You okay?"

  
_I'm...blushing,_ Jongin internalizes, slowly, his heart throbbing from blood loss. The last time that had happened was when Chanyeol brought up Joonmyun on his birthday.  _Why the hell am I blushing?_

  
"Hello?" Sehun asks.

Jongin rubs his face aggressively. "Yeah, sorry, I'm here." He pats (slaps) the cheek that isn't cradled by his pillow, hoping the brute force gets him back into form. "And I'm fine, Hun...about sunbae." Those last two words are muttered, like a secret. "I feel like I might've finally gotten over him."

"Really," Sehun says, and it's more a statement than a question.

"Yeah. Really."

For a long, protracted minute, Sehun doesn't say anything else.

  
"Hello?" Jongin eventually asks, the déjà vu washing over him like a night wind. His face is still hot, but his eyes are starting to droop. "Did I lose you, Hun?"

  
The young man on Taipei time hums in disagreement. "No," he replies, and two eyes in the heart of Osaka flutter closed. "I'm still here, Jongin."


	3. Chapter 3

Sehun had come out to him after two semesters at K-ARTS.  
  
Jongin had still been dating Do Kyungsoo then--a pretty-boy upperclassman he'd met at a soiree for all the music majors. Kyungsoo had warm hands, a low voice, and a soft, melting mouth that tasted like candy whenever he pressed it over Jongin's.  
  
Jongin can still remember it as clearly as though it had happened yesterday. How he'd come back to the dorm after one of their giddy makeout sprees in the deepest part of the library, lips still tingling from Kyungsoo's kisses. How he'd found Sehun face-down on his bed, eyes bloodshot and swollen, skin burning up. How Jongin had felt panicky and protective at once--and  _intensely_ \--because Sehun had become his rock over the past several months. Jongin'd never seen him sick before, let alone fragile.

 

  
"I have a fever," Sehun had rasped, completely disoriented. "Sorry, I thought this was my bed." Then he'd made a feeble attempt to get up.

  
Jongin had pushed him back down into his sheets, and with the tenderness of a mother, brushed stringy bangs off of Sehun's forehead. "Stay right here," he'd said, out of his depth but trying not to show it. "I'll take care of everything, Hun."

  
He'd spent the entire night pressing cool washcloths against Sehun's face and chest; bundling Sehun up in blankets when he got the shivers and stripping them off when his skin started to scorch itself raw. Jongin's mother, upon his request, had texted him her simplest porridge recipe, step by step. He'd made the gruel as thin and inoffensive as he possible could, so Sehun wouldn't throw it all up after Jongin had coaxed it, by the spoonful, into his system. When Sehun finally fell asleep, his face gray with fatigue, Jongin had climbed into bed next to him--hand on Sehun's hip, nose parallel to Sehun's nape. He'd hoped the contact would remind Sehun that someone was there if he needed help getting up to puke.

By morning, Jongin's palm and the tip of his nose were pressing into linens. Sehun had been sitting on the edge of the bed, knees drawn up to his chest, skin no longer colorless, but a healthy pink. He'd been waiting for Jongin to wake up.

  
Jongin had bolted upright, blinking himself into consciousness. "How do you feel?" He'd pressed his palm over Sehun's forehead, and then trailed it down to the slope of Sehun's cheekbone. No more temperature.

  
"Good," Sehun'd told him, eyes never leaving his face. "Thanks, Jongin."

  
Jongin had pshawed, grinning at him. "I'm the best, aren't I?"

  
Sehun had been watching him with something akin to longing, only more hesitant. "You are." He'd folded in his lips, licked them, and released them, and only then did Jongin notice the shake in them. "I want to tell you something."

  
The words had sounded serious enough for Jongin's grin to slide into a frown. "Okay."

  
"I think..." Sehun had started, his hands balling into Jongin's bedsheets. "I'm..." His breath had caught in his throat, and Jongin watched, completely baffled, as Sehun's lips moved without issuing any actual words. And then: "I'm just like you, Jongin."

  
"Me?"

  
Sehun'd rubbed his lips, over and over, with the tips of his ring and middle fingers. "I'm like you," he'd said, with finality. "I like the same kind of people you like." His mouth had shaken like a leaf.

  
It had hit Jongin with the force of a speeding, careening, twenty-ton truck.  _He's coming out to me..._

  
But Sehun hadn't been finished. "I always thought I liked girls. I've had so many crushes, you know? More than I can count." His hand had raked frantically through his hair--still platinum blonde at the time. "But recently, I've...I've been watching you and Kyungsoo. The way he touches you. The way you look at him. I'm sorry if that sounds weird, Jongin, and I know it  _is_  weird, but honestly it's made me realize that--"

Jongin had lunged at him before he could even finish. His embrace had been vicelike, forged with acceptance and affection and loyalty and the fiercest platonic love.

  
"I get it," he'd whispered into Sehun's ear. "You're just like me, Hun."

  
Sehun's arms had come to circle Jongin's waist. "Yeah," he'd said softly. "I am."

  
"I'm glad you told me," Jongin had said, rubbing soothing circles into the lowest part of Sehun's back. Sehun's breath had fanned against his neck. "Now we're brothers for life."

 

 

 

The third week that Sehun's been away, Jongin hears, for the very first time, what he sounds like in bed.

  
Jjanggah's been getting ticks in her paws again. Jongin calls Sehun for a quick chat about the last time this happened, and what medicine they got her to treat it.

  
The line rings five and a half times. In the middle of the sixth ring, Sehun picks up. At least, that's what Jongin thinks.

  
"Hun," he says, nibbling on a hangnail on his pinky, "I have a question about Jjanggah's tick-killing meds. Was it the cream or the spray that worked faster?"

  
He gets no reply--save for a long, low moan.

  
Jongin's mouth stills. His finger remains suspended between his lips. "Hello?"

  
There is another moan, followed by Sehun's ragged voice. "Fuck," he says, and the word is filled with pleasure. "Fuck, Yixing..."

Jongin's heart stops dead, like a clock out of batteries.

  
Now, he hears a new voice; more alto than baritone, less friendly than lusty. "You look so good like this," it says, and then something  _happens_ , because Sehun moans out a fresh string of curses.

  
"Yixing," he groans quietly, urgently. "Please."

  
Jongin's hand covers his mouth. It's clear as crystal now, what's going on the other end of the line. Sehun is having sex with someone, and Jongin must,  _must_  hang up, right this second.

  
But he can't.

  
"What do you want?" The voice--this  _Yixing_ \--is husky with desire. "Tell me exactly."

  
Sehun is practically delirious. "Just...ah!" he cries out, and the sound that follows  _that_  is unmistakable. Jongin's layered songs over 19-rated movie scenes, after all. Skin on skin.

  
"I've been trying to get you naked for weeks," Yixing is saying, and  _his_  voice is pinched, like he's holding back. "Tell me exactly what you want, and I'll give it to you."

  
Jongin hears the most obscene moan yet. It sends a chill down his spine, and sparks a fire in his belly, and gets his frozen heart pumping painfully back to life.

  
Every beat feels like a stab wound.

  
Sehun finally breathes out, " _Fuck me,_ " and it's a total surrender.

  
Jongin ends the call.

 

 

He takes Jjanggah to the vet by himself that afternoon.

  
"We use the spray for this little princess," the older woman tells him, scratching Jjanggah's head so gently that her eyes start to close. "Sehun-chan picked up six months' worth in January. Didn't he tell you?"

  
"No," Jongin says quietly. "He came alone?"

"Oh, yes." The vet takes Jjanggah from his arms and cradles her like a baby. "He said he was just on his way home from somewhere, and that you were on a date." Her smile is polite, and a little curious. "Was it a good one, Jongin-chan?"

  
It was that lunch with Joonmyun. Jongin doesn't even have to ask.

  
"It wasn't a date, Doc." The thought of Sehun trudging home alone, hungry, grumpy with him, but still stopping to run errands for Jongin's puppies--their kids--makes him feel sick. Jongin bites his lip. "It was just a meal with someone I used to know."

 

 

_Did you call?_

  
That's what Sehun texts, hours later, when Jongin is doing midnight laundry.

  
He can't sleep. He can't eat, either--he'd barely touched his dinner a few hours before, even though it was his favorite tempura takeout from that restaurant near the apartment. He's in a foul mood, and he can't explain it.

  
All he can do is think about Sehun, naked and willing in a bed in Taipei, underneath/on top/all over some guy named Yixing, whose Korean had had an odd twang to it, and whose unseen  _activities_  had pulled the filthiest sounds out of his best friend's body.

  
Jongin flings a handful of wet pajamas into their dryer. His mouth is pulled tight, and his fingers comb exasperatedly through just-showered hair. For a brief, petulant moment, he considers ignoring the message.

  
He's never ignored a message from Sehun in his life.

  
_Not important,_ he keys in eventually, insides caving with defeat. It turns him listless, this reluctant submission to decorum. It's a golden opportunity for closure drifting by, slow and leisurely, like the plump white fish in the koi pond at the MixTape office.

  
_Who were you fucking earlier?_

  
_How long have you been fucking?_

  
_Why didn't you fucking tell me?_

  
That's exactly what he'd type next, if it were any of his business. His thumbs are poised over the keypad. They twitch.

  
"Don't," Jongin rebukes himself, out loud. "Just... _don't._ " He waits, and his screen dims, and it switches to black. Jongin lays his thumbs flat on top of it.

  
Sehun is his best friend. Not his boyfriend. Not his.

  
That stabbing sensation from earlier returns, and the pain of his desperately throbbing heart radiates to the very tips of Jongin's fingers when he types the three words that will end this conversation.

  
_Good night, Sehunnie._

 

 

At work, he storms about like a dark cloud. He avoids meals with everyone, including Sooyoung, whose eyes trail after him like magnets after he ducks out of her reach with a muttered excuse. He shuts himself into the smallest studio, when no one on the team is scheduled to be in there, just so he doesn't have to talk to anybody and explain. There, he hammers out his soundtrack for the Korean melo--sad songs first, love songs forgotten.

  
Chanyeol drags him out to drink after four days of this.

  
"We're going to Bar Cactus," the older man barks in response to Jongin's objections. "It's near your place. You need to learn how to drink tequila. Shut up."

  
He's right, no matter how loudly Jongin bitches in protest. They take Exit [#5](https://www.livejournal.com/rsearch/?tags=%235) from the Shinsaibashi Station, and there it is, just a little further down the road. If Jongin walked three more blocks and took a left, he'd arrive at his and Sehun's apartment building.

  
Bar Cactus is cozy and dimly lit, studded with the usual Mexican tchotchkes and equipped to seat just two dozen patrons. Chanyeol nabs the only table for two on the first floor, nudging Jongin into the seat opposite him. He orders a bottle of Espolon.

  
"You'll like this," Chanyeol says briskly. "It tastes like butterscotch, and it's got a kick."

  
Jongin is worn-out from working all day and moping all week, so he just nods, staring at the wood grain of their tiny table.

  
The Espolon arrives, glinting light gold in its corked poison bottle. The server brings them two shot glasses and tells them to wave him over if they need snacks to go with their drinks.

  
Chanyeol pours out two portions of the tequila. "Don't take it as a shot," he tells Jongin, pushing one of the glasses across the table. "This is the good stuff. You sip it."

  
They nurse their drinks in silence. The tequila is sweet and stout; perfumed, like the inside of a wood barrel. When Jongin swallows his first sip, it dances in his throat, sparking all the way down to the pit of his stomach.

  
"Tell me what happened." Chanyeol's voice has lost its edge. It's round and warm, like the liquor in both their bellies. "And don't say 'nothing,' Jongin, because I won't buy that for a second."

  
Jongin fiddles with his shot glass, watching the infinitesimal ripples in the golden liquid. He makes eye contact with Chanyeol for this first time. There is reproach on his friend's face, mingling with affection, all wrapped up in concern.

  
Chanyeol handles his next words carefully, like they're made of gossamer. "Is it Joonmyun-sunbae?"

  
Jongin actually reels. His shot glass sits flush against the table. "Why would you say that?"

  
Chanyeol sips his tequila. "I always thought you were...kind of...sweet on him." His lips purse. "If that's not the case, I'm sorry for assuming."

  
"I was." Jongin answers without thinking, head racing, knees bouncing. "Not anymore. But that's not why..."

  
"So it's Sehun."

  
Color pools in Jongin's face, hot and thick, faster than he can blink. "Hyung," he says, slowly, so he doesn't stutter. "Why would you--"

  
"You've never been apart this long." Chanyeol's eyes shift, like he's trying to suss out a secret clue. "Did you have a fight?"

  
"A fight?" Jongin rubs his face. "That's silly. What would we fight about?"

  
"I don't know." Chanyeol takes another sip of his Espolon. "Is he jealous about sunbae?"

  
"No--hyung." Exasperation is a rush of heat, a dryness in the mouth. "I told you, it has nothing to do with sunbae. Besides," Jongin expels his breath, "why would he be jealous? It's not like I'm spending less time with him to hang out with anyone else." He slams back the rest of his tequila, contrary to Chanyeol's instructions. It practically burns the skin off his esophagus. He coughs out, "Sehun's the one who left for a Taipei for a month to have dinner meetings that go on all night, and to ignore my phone calls, and to--"  _Yixing...please._ "To sleep with some  _stranger_."

  
In a split second, Chanyeol's eyes have tripled in size. "Excuse me?"

  
Cat's out of the bag.

  
Jongin's looking for an ally, so he doesn't feel the slightest shred of remorse. "I called him," he continues, pouring himself another tequila. His hand trembles from the adrenaline. Some of the drink drips over the lip of his glass. "He must have picked up by accident. Maybe his butt pressed it. I don't know." He takes the entire shot,  _again_ , and it's like a dozen lemon wedges rubbing over sunburned skin. "Then I heard him. Mid-coitus."

  
" _No,_ " Chanyeol whispers on an exhale, completely flabbergasted.

  
"Yes." Jongin looks away. His chest twinges, and the feeling is familiar and horrible and as fresh as it was the first time. Most of all, it is telling. "I heard everything."

  
"But Sehun's in love with you," Chanyeol says, without skipping a beat. "Why would he..."

  
The words float in the air like small, filmy bubbles, poised to pop.

  
In a millisecond, Chanyeol's mind catches up to his mouth. A hand flies over loose lips. "I mean--"

  
The whir of the world spinning on its axis drowns out the rest of that sentence. Jongin grips the edge of the table with one hand. His other hand sets down the bottle of Espolon, which was dangerously close to pouring another shot. He grips the bottle for dear life, like it's an anchor--the single fixed point in this centripetal force of gravity. "What...what did you just say?"

  
Chanyeol is of sharp cheekbone and proud brow--but everything softens, like butter over heat, when he hears Jongin stammer. His hand falls away from his mouth. "I guess you really didn't know."

  
"What the  _fuck_ , hyung!" Jongin lurches away from the table, leaning as far back into the cushion of his chair as he can manage.  _Sehun...is in love with me?_  "What do you--how did you--why are you saying this like it's common knowledge?"

  
The tilt of Chanyeol's head is a tender rebuke. "It is, Jongin. You're the only one who doesn't see it."

  
Jongin stares straight ahead, without blinking, until his eyes smart. But it's no longer Chanyeol's face that looms before his eyes.

  
Sehun touching his face with the tips of his fingers.

  
Sehun opening his arms, in the middle of the night, when Jongin trudges into his bedroom with insomnia.

  
Sehun bussing his cheek, his forehead, his crown; the sensation of his lips lingering even though they've barely made contact.

  
Sehun looking at him, just looking, his expression layered and locked so that Jongin can't decipher it, not even after years of practice--only to look away when Jongin strips down to his skivvies in the apartment.

  
Sehun washing his hair in the shower, fingers warm, grip sure; the rest of his body held away at arm's length, so nothing else touches but his hands and Jongin's scalp.

  
Sehun never allowing Jongin to wash his.

  
The impenetrable glaze over Sehun's pupils, the guarded praise issuing from his lips, the reluctant yet faithful support he'd given Jongin's plans  _each and every time_  Joonmyun-sunbae came into conversation.

  
("Maybe I'm just being possessive," Sehun'd said, once Jongin had revealed the identity of his first love. "Never thought you'd be more obsessed with anyone than you are with me.")

  
There are thousands of bricks heaped over Jongin's shoulders, each memory adding a hundred more. But that pales in comparison to the devastating weight in his heart--a galleon sinking into the deep, dark sea.

  
_Sehun is in love with me,_ Jongin intones, in shock and shame and everything unbearable in between.  _I've been such a fucking idiot._

  
An unknown force has jacked up the volume of Chanyeol's voice. "When you were with Kyungsoo in college," the older man is saying, "Sehun would hang out in my room, and we'd just play video games until you came home from your dates. He told me how he felt about you, one of those times. I just listened, and he never brought it up again. But I could tell nothing changed after that."

  
Jongin steeples his fingers over his mouth. "That was so long ago, hyung. We were still kids..."  _I've been such a fucking idiot._

  
"He's loved you a long time." Chanyeol takes the rest of his drink in one shot, just like Jongin had done. Tonight is not the night for sipping. "It was so obvious, Jongin. Still is. Even Kyungsoo noticed."

  
Jongin gapes. His pretty-boy ex had kept mostly to himself--but Chanyeol had been friends with everybody in college.

  
The latter doesn't even wait for questions. "I never told you this," he explains to Jongin. "But when Kyungsoo broke up with you, he asked me to go drinking with him at one of those pojangmanchas outside campus. Remember the purple tent?" Chanyeol traces a halo around his head. "Red-haired ahjumma who sold us odeng and soju?"

  
Jongin nods, and it feels like slow motion.

  
("This is the best fish cake in town," he'd gushed to Kyungsoo in the early days. "My best friend Sehun discovered it.")

  
"We finished six bottles of soju," Chanyeol goes on. "I could only manage two. Kyungsoo guzzled the rest. And when he was good and drunk, he said to me--what was it?" Brows furrow. Lips are licked. "He said, 'I love that boy, Chanyeol, but I just didn't want to be second-best anymore.'"

  
"To whom?" Jongin objects, baffled and torn. "We were completely exclusive. I'd stopped emailing Joonmyun-sunbae after our first few dates because I liked Kyungsoo so much. How could he even--"

  
"I'm not sure if he knew anything about sunbae," Chanyeol cuts in quietly. "But the person he was referring to was Sehun."

  
Jongin shuts his eyes. Another one of those dizzy spells has kicked up a vortex in the center of his forehead. "I don't get it, hyung."

  
He feels a large hand pass over the top of his head. He opens his eyes. The steady, searing gaze Chanyeol is levelling at him is the kind Jongin can't escape.

  
"Yes, you do," Chanyeol says. His tone is kind but firm. "You don't see the way you look at him. But I'm sure you've caught yourself looking."

  
He strokes his hand over Jongin's hair one more time, like a father would. Then he retreats into his own territory.

  
_Now_  Jongin gets it.

  
His arms around Sehun's waist, chest pressed against the warmth of Sehun's broad, broad back.

  
His nose in Sehun's hair--right above his ear or just at his nape--where the strands are the softest and smell of melon shampoo.

  
His mouth on the parts of Sehun's skin where friends are allowed to kiss--his cheek, his forehead, his crown--lingering longer than he should, because that's what ~best friends~ are allowed to do.

  
His need to impress Sehun with his work, to please him with his compliments, to tail him like a shadow, wherever Sehun goes, so he and Jongin can experience everything together.

  
His blazing, hell-raising jealousy when another man had made Sehun moan.

  
His hollow, clattering heart-feeling when he thinks of that same man making Sehun come.

  
The way his chest had squeezed when Sehun'd left for Taipei, and how he'd held his breath when Sehun'd stroked his face, and the earth-shattering realization that Sehun had said everything with that single movement.

  
_I've been such a fucking idiot._

  
"I'm too late," he mutters, and he feels the waves crashing around his shipwreck. "Shit, hyung, I've been so blind." The tide pulls him under, so he can no longer breathe. "He's got someone else now."

  
Chanyeol's face is marbled with pity, pride, and relief. "Jongin," he says, over the din of glasses clinking. "Tell him the truth."

The room glows from the backlight of the wall-to-wall bottle display. The air conditioner vent swings up, then down, and it smells of wood barrel and butterscotch and Jongin's bleeding heart.

  
"It's too late, hyung."

  
Chanyeol shrugs, and he reaches across the table for the bottle of Espolon. "It's the only thing you've got left."

 

 

The puppies are the first to greet Sehun when he comes home from Taipei.

  
"Babies," he coos as three miniature poodles yip and hop around him. He drops his backpack on the floor of the foyer and pushes his suitcase out of the way, kneeling so the puppies can clamber all over him. "I'm back~"

  
Jongin leans against the entryway, trying to be casual. Then he decides against it, because he feels like he's posing for a picture. He settles for standing up straight instead, his hands shoved into the pockets of his (new) jeans.

  
Fleetingly, he thinks of how surreal it is to be scared in his own home.

  
"Hun," he starts, his voice cracking over the single syllable. It makes him flinch--not because of how uncool it is, but because of how unnatural he sounds. He clears his throat. "Hi."

  
The smile Sehun gives him is small and bright; an open window in a dark attic. It turns Jongin's knees to jelly. "Hi."

  
Sehun's got his cap on backwards. What little of his fringe peeks out in the front looks greasy (probably smells, too). His sweatshirt is tragically creased, and his joggers are riding up around his calves. He's wearing his old glasses today, so he looks like student. Sehun never wears contact lenses on flights--says they dry out his eyes and make them all crusty.

  
If Sooyoung were here, she'd call him out on it.  _Taipei's only three hours away, and you look this rough?_

  
A few months ago, Jongin would have said it himself.

  
But on this sleepy Sunday afternoon, with secrets hanging over their heads like a dense fog, all he can focus on is the thump of his heart and the full-body urge to reach for this man and kiss him, airplane smell and all.

  
"I missed you," Jongin blurts out. "A lot."

  
Sehun's lips part, like he was caught off guard. His eyes flicker significantly. Jongin can't tell if he's going to smile again, or ask him questions, or maybe just laugh.

  
So when Sehun replies, "Me, too," the muscles in his face set to stone-cold stoic, it's a little anticlimactic.

  
Jongin feels let down, but he tries again. "I'm glad you're home." Fond voice. No filter. "That felt so much longer than a month."

  
"Did it?" Sehun goes back to patting the dogs. "I guess I was so busy with work, time just flew by."

  
That punctures something between Jongin's lungs. He stares down at the floor, gritting his back teeth. "What else were you busy with?" he snaps in an undertone. "Or  _who_."

  
_That_  gets Sehun's attention. "What?" he clarifies, no longer nonchalant. Concern is a map connecting tiny, invisible dots across his countenance.

  
Jongin shakes his head. He's acting like a spoiled brat, and he knows it. He moves away from the foyer so Sehun can pass through, chiding himself internally.

  
Sehun leaves his luggage where it is. "Hey." Long legs narrow the distance between them in a few strides. Sehun places his hand over Jongin's wrist. "Why are you mad?"

  
Jongin can't look up. He feels stupid and childish and shut in a trap of his own making. He shakes his head a second time.

  
The timbre of Sehun's voice is even more caressing than before. "What did I do?"

  
Jongin can't help it.

  
In one fluid motion, he's stepped right into Sehun's space. He hooks his chin over a bony shoulder and his finger into the edge of a sleeve.

  
It causes a minor chain reaction. Sehun moves his hand from Jongin's wrist to the small of his back. His fingers splay out protectively. He presses his nose against Jongin's temple--and Jongin's stomach churns.

  
He steels himself. "Who is Yixing?"

  
Immediately, Sehun's body stiffens. "Why do you know that name?"

  
Jongin gulps, and it's like molasses in his throat. "I called you a week ago," he recounts, as he had to Chanyeol at that tequila bar. "I heard you two through the phone." The nerves have taken over his voice. He could use some tequila right about now. "Who is he, Hun?"

  
"Nobody." The answer is an adamant one. Jongin finds himself crushed against Sehun's chest. "He's nobody."

  
Even as relief trickles through the hole in his heart, Jongin can't let it go. "But I heard him," he insists. "He said,  _for weeks..._ "

  
"He's from the office." Sehun's tone is flat, and not to be negated. "We worked together while I was there. He flirted with me, and I gave in. Once."

  
Once. Jongin hates that word. "Why?"

  
"Why else?" The sound that follows that is a sorry excuse for a chuckle. "Because I was sick of being the sad one." Sehun shifts away, inch by painstaking inch. "The unwanted one. The one waiting at home all the time, like a chump." The awful sound repeats itself. "I was jealous of your sunbae, okay, Jongin? Okay? I was jealous because I  _love you,_  so in the spur of the moment I--"

  
"Time out." Jongin grips Sehun's sleeve. He has drums in his ears, and a jackhammer heart. "Say that again."

  
" _No._ " Sehun wrests away, catching his breath. "You heard me the first time." He spins on his heel, making a beeline for his abandoned baggage.

  
When Jongin grabs him from behind, in a vicelike embrace, Sehun stops in his tracks.

  
"Let me go," he mutters. "I haven't slept since Friday, and I need a fucking shower, Jongin. Don't make me feel any more pathetic than I do right now."

  
A car honks from the street outside their apartment. Next door, the opening theme of SpongeBob SquarePants blares from their neighbor's television.

  
Jongin starts from the beginning, like he does with every record.

  
Track 1.

  
"In college," he says, "I was happy you never dated anybody."

  
Sehun's head whips to the side, so Jongin can see his profile.

  
"I didn't want to share you," Jongin soldiers on. "You were the coolest person I knew. So talented and smart. So self-assured. You were like a senior when the rest of us were freshmen."

  
Sehun's jaw works. Other than that, he remains silent.

  
"That," Jongin swallows, "and you were sweet. And good-looking. And good to me. When you told me you liked men, it made me feel so much closer to you, Hun. But it also made me uneasy."

  
A sigh swells between their bodies.

  
"I wanted you all to myself." Jongin presses his nose into the fabric covering Sehun's neck. "Your inside jokes. Your surprise smiles." There is a movement, and Sehun's head is resting against his. "Didn't you ever wonder why I never let Kyungsoo hang out with us?"

  
He feels the elevation in Sehun's shoulders when his lungs fill with air. "What are you..." Sehun exhales sharply. "What are you trying to tell me?"

  
Jongin digs his fingers into Sehun's sweatshirt. It's an old one, tempered and torn by wash and wear. He'd had it since K-ARTS. All its seams are giving out--but he could never bring himself to toss it.

  
Ten years is a long, long time.

  
Jongin says, "I think--no, I  _know_ \--I feel the same way."

  
They're still standing in front of the foyer. The puppies are pacing around them; whining, sniffing, wondering at their stillness. Jjanggah licks Jongin's bare toes, and SpongeBob SquarePants yells in Japanese.

  
Sehun leans his head back. He doesn't have to go too far to brush his lips over Jongin's. It happens so quickly--the beat between two seconds--Jongin doesn't even get to close his eyes.

  
"I didn't know," Sehun tells him. His lashes are wet, and his voice is brimming with emotion. "I had no idea. I just...hoped."

  
Jongin drops his head on Sehun's shoulder. Solace is the scent of an old shirt, and the warmth of a new love. "You and me both."

 

 

They take a shower together, like they always do. Only this time, Sehun gets to the shampoo first.

  
"Will you wash my hair?" He presses his lips together, staring at the bottle in his hands instead of Jongin's face. "I warn you, it's gross."

  
"It's fine," is Jongin's reply. He takes the bottle, pops the cap. "It's you."

  
Sehun doesn't both turning around. Just waits, with his arms hanging at his sides. Jongin squeezes out the shampoo, smooths it over Sehun's head, and lathers it up. He's a little embarrassed, being watched so closely like this; Sehun's breath fans over wet skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

  
But he likes it just the same, because he can sneak looks at Sehun's serious face and track every change in his expression when the shampoo is massaged into his scalp.

  
Sehun has his eyes closed. His lids tremble, like butterfly wings. His mouth is wet.

  
Jongin's hands are full of melon-scented suds. He lets them slide down to Sehun's nape. "I want to kiss you."

  
Sehun opens his eyes. The look residing in them does not waver. "Then do it."

  
Jongin takes a step forward, keeping his hands where they are. A thrill races over his skin when Sehun places his own hands on Jongin's hips.

  
"I don't want you to slip," Sehun says simply, and Jongin closes the gap between them with his mouth.

  
_Finally,_  his subconscious says, as he kisses Sehun once, twice, thrice. Sehun tastes like peppermint gum and Japanese tea, and Jongin lingers longer and presses harder each time to savor it. Sehun does, too. He works to prolong each meeting of their lips, movements waxing when Jongin's wane, tilting left when Jongin tilts right. The water from the shower streams down their faces, and their chests slide together like two pieces of a puzzle.

  
Sehun has thin lips and a small, hot mouth. He opens it after Jongin pulls back, inviting him back in. His face is wrecked with lust, and his eyes are filled with wonder.

  
Jongin dips down. They swirl tongues, and Sehun whines high at the back of his throat. Jongin plunges in deeper. He sucks on Sehun's tongue, and Sehun moves his hands down to cup Jongin's ass.

  
Something stirs against Jongin's belly. He's so turned on, he can't tell if it's him, or Sehun, or both.

  
"What did Yixing do," he mouths against Sehun's lips, "to make you moan like that?"

  
Sehun doesn't stop kissing him. "Are you jealous?" he asks, breathlessly.

  
"Yeah," Jongin mutters, and Sehun squeezes his ass, hard. "Ah, fuck, Hun."

  
Sehun turns his face so he can access the shell of Jongin's ear. "He put his face between my legs, and he kissed me."

  
Jongin laps into his mouth, grabbing a handful of Sehun's ass at the same time. It is firm and pert, like a peach. "What else?"

  
"Oh," Sehun groans, as Jongin suctions his lips to the side of his neck. Rosy little welts rise over the skin. "He...he was creative. With his mouth and his fingers."

  
"Where?"

  
"Everywhere." This time, it is Sehun who yanks Jongin up by the hair to tongue his ear. "It's not a competition, Jongin."

  
"Shut up," Jongin growls in warning. He pulls Sehun closer to him so that their skin creates friction again. Then he backs him up against the wall. "Did you come?"

  
Sehun leans his head back, half-lidded, exposing the jut of his Adam's apple. "Yes."

  
Jongin licks a long, aggressive stripe over it. "How?"

  
"He put my legs over his shoulders," Sehun whispers. He skates his hands up Jongin's back, then scratches down it suggestively. "And he didn't stop until I did."

  
Jongin is wild with envy and prickling with frustration--and, honestly, hard. It's a difficult cocktail to swallow. He leans his forehead against Sehun's. The water sprays over their heads, drips down their backs, and pools at their feet.

  
"It meant nothing to me, Jongin," he hears Sehun say. "I was just lonely." His words are sure, and his tone is tentative, and Jongin wants to have him all to himself.

  
He raises his face. For a moment, he just soaks up the view: Sehun wet, Sehun naked, Sehun warm and gorgeous and  _present_ , just waiting to be loved.

  
"I was lonely, too." Jongin bites the inside of his cheek. "Will you sleep with me, Hun?"

  
Sehun's face makes its own sunlight; soft, like the glow of an afternoon through the leaves of a wisteria tree.

  
"I thought you'd never ask," he replies, with the smile of a man deeply in love.

  
Then the sunlight darkens to something less innocent, and Sehun reaches between their bodies to make Jongin hiss.

 

 

There is no sleeping when they sleep together.

  
Jongin takes Sehun against the shower door, with his leg hooked around Jongin's hips and his rich moans muffled by Jongin's lips.

  
Still nude and dripping wet, Sehun maneuvers them both across the apartment, all the way to his bed. He pushes Jongin down, and he grinds their hips together, and he gets Jongin to cry out his name.

  
When Jongin recovers, he kisses Sehun again, deep and deliberate, until his entire body is flushed and ready. In the end, they're both sitting up in bed; Sehun's taut thighs on either side of Jongin's hips. There are fists in Jongin's hair, and a sweet, swollen nipple in his mouth, when the final release comes. Then they both go limp.

  
They breathe and breathe and breathe.

  
With his face mashed against Sehun's neck, Jongin watches the movement in the other man's body, mesmerized. Ribs, sternum, base of throat; peaks and valleys, pink and gold.

There is a line in a poem he once read in college that describes the color sweeping across Sehun's skin. Jongin runs through it in his head:  _I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees._

  
From now on, he will be reminded of this moment when he sees the cherry blossoms, ripe and fragrant and flowering to life.

  
"I love you, Jongin," Sehun murmurs, his head still thrown back. "Always have."

  
Jongin snakes his hand up Sehun's spine until he gets to his nape. He tips Sehun's head forward so they can look each other in the eye.

  
"I've been so stupid," he begins, and the words are plaintive. "I can't believe you put up with my shit all these years."

  
Sehun issues the weakest giggle.

  
"But..." Twenty-nine-year-old lashes flutter with nerves. "You're the one, Hun."

  
The amusement slips from Sehun's face. It is replaced by radiant joy.

  
"I don't want you to be with anyone else," Jongin tells him. Just saying it makes his chest squeeze. "It hurts."

  
Sehun brushes the tips of their noses. Silent, forgiving little Eskimo kiss. "I know."

  
"I love you," Jongin confesses. It echoes like a prayer. "So much." Sehun's eyes fall closed, and there, right there, is the curl of his smile. Jongin is grateful to see it again. "It just took me a little longer to figure things out."

  
"Let's figure them out a little more then," Sehun murmurs, smooth as silk, with a playful glint in his eye.

  
Jongin's grin engulfs his face. "Flirt," he declares. "Don't even try that with anybody who isn't me."

  
Then Sehun bursts out laughing, and Jongin pushes him back down into their soiled sheets.

 

 

Sooyoung's jaw is, quite literally, on the ground.

  
"Oh, my  _god_."

  
It's bright and early on a Monday morning. MixTape Osaka is bustling with deliveries for new instruments, mixing equipment, and gifts from satisfied clients. There's a delicious stack of vinyls at reception, waiting to be devoured--Amy Winehouse, Asobi Seksu, a remastered Beatles anthology, the latest Toe.

  
Chanyeol's got Band road-testing his next score for an Ang Lee short. It's an experimental mix of Italian cello and djembe drums. Jongin likes every note he hears from Sooyoung's office, where he and Sehun are holding hands.

  
Sooyoung has beautiful, square white teeth, and she's showing every one of them. "What is going on, you guys?" Her hand creeps up to her mouth. "Does your hyung know about this?"

  
Jongin tries to keep a straight face. "That we're together now?" His smile cracks through when Sehun squeezes his hand. "It's a surprise."

  
Sooyoung squeals, and she comes flying towards them, her Manolos clacking against the floor.

  
"This is  _crazy_ ," Sehun giggles, just before she gets to them.

  
"I know," Jongin mouths in reply. Sooyoung is now hugging them both, jumping up and down on her four-inch heels. He barely gets away with pecking Sehun behind her back. "Isn't it great?"

 

 

For Sehun's twenty-ninth birthday, Jongin takes him to Nishinomaru Garden.

  
It's a cool, dry evening in April. The mustard grass is turning tender green. The boughs of the cherry trees have gone feathery with bloom--millions of petals rivaling the stars. They're illuminated by hidden lights at the roots, so the branches look like they're covered in pink snow.

  
Close by, Osaka Castle is lit up like a ride at an amusement park; neon blue and fluoro white masking its ancient jade tiles.

  
"I love this," Sehun murmurs, taking in their surroundings. They've joined the rest of the coupled-up public in the largest sakura grove. "I've never been here at night before."

  
Jongin smiles to himself as he spreads a picnic blanket. He's brought wine and cheese and chocolate--and some shiso-marinated tonkatsu. "You always said you wanted to." He's so smug about it. "Seemed like a good choice for our first date."

  
Sehun's smiling at him, too. "You remember everything, don't you?"

  
Jongin's been the recipient of that smile for over a decade--but now, he has to fight the impulse to touch it. "When it's important," he says, "yes."

  
"So." Sehun's expression shifts to mischief. "First date, huh?" He waggles his brows. "Will anyone be putting out?"

  
"I'm pretty uptight," Jongin replies, poker-faced. "But since it's your birthday, I  _might_  have to make an exception."

  
He'd gone down on Sehun at the breakfast table this morning. Then he'd bent over the kitchen counter, winking over his shoulder. Very uptight.

  
"Well." Sehun's hand alights on the dip of his waist. "I love a shy boy." Swiftly, he swoops in for a kiss. No heat--just honey.

  
A man pushes by them abruptly. Sehun loses his footing. Jongin catches him ("Gotcha") before he cranes indignantly in the stranger's direction.

  
The man has already bowed three times. "I'm so sorry," he apologizes to both of them, in fluent Nihongo. He has jet black hair, and the same deep green sweater that Jongin had found at H&M. There's a smartphone in the man's left hand, and he's covering the receiver with his right. "Please excuse me. I wasn't watching where I was going."

  
Sehun places him first. "Hello, sunbae." He uses polite speech. "Remember me?"

  
"Oh--" Joonmyun sees their faces for the first time. Recognition permeates his gaze. "Sehunnie, Jonginnie, hi."

  
It's cute how even Sehun gets a nickname, when Joonmyun's only met him once.

  
Sunbaes.

  
Jongin draws his boyfriend into a back-hug. It's a reassurance. Sehun traces his knuckles, not troubled in the least.

  
Joonmyun registers every detail. "You kids on a date?" There's a twinkle in his eye.

  
"Yup!" Jongin doesn't even try to reel it in. Sehun pinches the dip next to his thumb. "And you?"

  
Joonmyun brings up the phone he's still holding-- _cradling,_  really, like it's a tiny bird's egg. "I've got to go," he whispers. "My wife just called to say she misses me."

  
That washes over Jongin like warm bathwater. "Get her to visit," he whispers back.

  
Sehun's nod is an eager one. "We'll show you around--for real this time."

  
There's more nodding on Joonmyun's part, and some follow-up apologies, and one bouncing thumbs-up. Then the older man crinkles his boyish eyes and turns away. ("Soojung?" they hear him say into the phone. "Yeah, baby, I can hear you.")

  
After that, there is no need for discussion. They settle down on the picnic blanket; calm and quiet, comfortable in their silence. Sehun lays out the cutlery, and Jongin uncorks the sauvignon blanc.

  
It feels like he's come full circle, somehow.

  
"Hey, Hun."

  
"Hmm?" Sehun's starting in on the tonkatsu. There's a fleck of breading in the corner of his mouth.

  
Jongin wipes it off. "We should have a song."

  
Sehun laughs at him, indulgent and mellifluous. "Because we make mixtapes for a living?"

  
Jongin's smile is light, but his glance is loaded. "Just because."

  
Slender typing fingers brush under his chin and over his lips. "I already have a song for you, Jongin."

  
Teeth flash. "What is it?"

  
"It's pretty common."

  
"That's fine."

  
"Don't tell anybody."

  
"I won't."

  
"So it'll be our little secret?"

  
"Okay."

  
Sehun leans in. His clean-shaven cheek rubs over Jongin's stubble, and his pale, chapped lips graze the lobe of Jongin's ear.

  
He whispers the title. Four words. Six syllables.

  
"That's perfect," Jongin tells him, the wine in his breath mingling with the cherry blossom scent. He catches a whiff of Sehun's after-shave, too, just before he is kissed. "That's so us."

**Author's Note:**

> Named for [the song by Keane](https://open.spotify.com/track/5LOaKdW9D2Gl9neAN94NbR), which will live forever.


End file.
